To My Dearest in Kenitra

My Dearest,

Could words ever trace the flat-line of a heartbeat at one’s sight? Paint with lively, perked cheeks and moving limbs?.

My dearest, an "I love you" was always heard decaying at the sight of your conflicted eyes. "I love you" lying grave-less at your silent, padded white walls; its ashes swayed with hot wind, some tangled in the fire I poured on myself.

My dearest, could we ever answer the questions dry in our throats?

I love you is not enough. Embraced by hollow, deceiving hugs, I must have known better.

Tracing the overgrown flesh on your back, I should have kissed, but forgiveness is a trivial question at the bottom of the hardest exam. Complex.

No dissection worth the minutes we are alive and the seconds we have to spill it all.

Would my words cradle your insides gently?

Lay you on clear-sky clouds, hum motherly melodies in a language lost to us both?

If my words were dots of smudged ink on an old love letter, would your mouth read them in time?

Would you trace my wholly shaped thoughts on clean white paper, or notice them a little too late?

My dearest, if my words stopped failing me, would they even matter to you?

My dearest,

Years passed.

These clouds painted on a blue-sky canvas sit above me, tinted white not by our smoke.

This bench is cold at the edge, and these trees don’t bend down to cover your light tap on my finger.

The passing cars don’t muffle your sarcastic warning.

I don’t wet my joints anymore, but I’ll do it regardless. I am 3,470 days sober.

These clouds move by quickly, indifferently.

Hicham, the gate guard, died six years ago.

His obituary was covered by another’s death seven months later, so we won’t get in trouble for smoking behind the cafeteria anymore.

So come back. Come back… please.

let’s sneak past the curfew.

I’ll crush the tobacco after you sniff my palm.

I’ll mouth all your lines if you forgot; I’ll say every word in your tone.

Come back.

I’ll say, pretentiously, “ I don’t like my cigarette to smell like Dove soap.”

You’ll warm your small piece with my pink lighter; the one you stole twelve years ago when you first slept at my house.

Please come back.

You’ll roll a crooked cigarette, roll your eyes at me, seal it with your tongue, and I’ll mouth your what.

Please come back to me so we can tell Hicham, for the last time, that this is our last time smoking here.

Please, my dearest, come back to me.