When I send you a smile
It’s a hand on your shoulder.
When I send you a rose,
It’s a kiss on your cheek.
When I send you a picture,
It’s my hand reaching for yours.
Words are all we have.
Words are never enough.
Patience is all we have.
Patience has to be enough.
Hope is all we have.
Hope is more than enough.
Did you hear?
Did you read?
Do you believe…
The world is ending.
Falling like flies.
Hiding like preys.
Did you feel it?
Did you sense it?
Do you know that…
We are just beginning.
Falling like teenagers.
Hiding like children.
Social distancing
Safety confinement
Self quarantine
All those words mean nothing
When the one you dream of,
When the one you pray for,
When the one you love
Is already so far away.
As we hide from society
As we distance from friends
As we wash our hands again and again.
We open up with cipher.
We cling through a web.
We reach through a net
And hold on to each other.
Like there’s no tomorrow.
Like there’s no one else.
Like there are no bodies.
No hands to hold.
No eyes to behold.
No lips to homage.
Just a few words.
Just a few images.
Just two souls.
Tell me, my love,
Where do we court each other?
In our deeply hidden dreams?
In our hesitant instant messaging?
In that state of being beyond reality?
Is it a love of clicks and swipes?
Is it a love of aesthetics and quotes?
Is it a love of mystical and divine quality?
Why am I even asking when I already know…
Whether it was face to face.
Whether it was here or there.
Whether it was from link to links.
It doesn’t matter really how we found each other.
Unspoken,
Unimaginable,
Unreachable,
Was it always there
In your dreams,
In my songs,
In the Divine Decree…?
Or so, I pray that it is.
They are hoarding
They are despairing.
They are scurrying.
I am scattering my petals.
You are stretching your branches.
Between us, spring is in full bloom.
And we are all praying,
And we are all waiting,
And we are all striving,
For better days to come.
The storm will fall.
The eruption will still.
The outbreak will fade.
And what will remain…
Is beyond our hopes.
Is beyond our fears.
Is beyond our predictions.
But I know that…
When that lull comes,
When that dawn breaks,
When that beacon lights,
It is to you that I shall fly to.
Layla Ali Sultan 