In the summer

I stretch out on the shore

And think of you

Had I told the sea

What I felt for you,

It would have left its shores,

Its shells,

Its fish,

And followed me.

—

Aziz Al Qalb,

How do you explain to someone a concept intangible? How can love have a definition when feelings are beyond any words can express? They ask me why her? How do I make them understand that she's all I've ever desired? That there doesn't have to be a reason for me loving her when she rules my heart, for the heart considers no logic. That she's the queen of my kingdom. That she's all my joy and pain, all my laughters and tears. One cannot wear my shoes and walk into them and know that my soul doesn't possess my body anymore but swims into hers, has drowned into hers. That I'm dead without her.

They tell me that three years is a long time. What if she never comes back? Will I keep worshipping my past forever and never move on? Do they not know that I'm a sinner and can break promises? Do they not know that she's my lover and I can walk miles to find her again? How do I cheat her and be with another one when I don't have a heart to offer to anyone anymore? Do I break another innocent heart too? I'm a sinner but not so unfair.

Mother says I should remarry now. She uses the excuse that I'm getting old and jokes about it. But I think she sees the longing in my eyes when I look at my brother and his wife with their children. Maybe this is the life I had started dreaming of for us before she left me. But I always make excuses to mother too, about how I need to complete my PhD first before thinking of starting a family. Although I think she sees through my lies but never points them out. I know she only wants me to be happy but how do I explain it to her that my happiness lies with her? So I let her live with the hope that maybe someday, I'll find love again.

When the weather is good on some fortunate days, I go horse riding with Raad. Doha often joins us too. It surprises me how things have changed, but I feel no resentment in my bosom towards them anymore, and they've accepted this changed wholly too. It gladdens me we've bridged the gaps between us and are a family now. I would never have known what I would be missing otherwise: the joy of a family.

They ask me about her often, and I've told them each of our story a thousand times. They tell me how she sounds like a magical woman, and I tell them how she is. Doha asks me to make guesses every now and then, if she could've made best friends with her. I laugh and tell her yes, because that was how my woman was: she could win anyone. She suggested a few times how I should go looking for her and bring her home, and I agreed with her each time but I do not know what is it that's stopping me.

In the beginning, baba asked me a few times about her too, and about my decision and plans for the future. But with time, his queries regressed and now he doesn't ask me anything anymore. I know he worries for me too, but that is how he always has been: too formal with us to interfere in our love life.

Sometimes when the hour is late at night, Waleed comes to sit with me and we talk about her. He tells me how everyone thinks that I've a heart of gold, and I tell him I've stolen this from my lady. And he tells me how she'll be back in my life, for a heart of gold deserves a heart of gold. His words give me hope.

Khalifa is an energetic child and he tires me sometimes, but he's the apple of my eye in the house. Being with him keeps my thoughts dynamic and I momentarily forget about my pain. His sister is too small and fragile for me yet and I'm afraid to even hold her. But I love my niece as much as my nephew. Marjan is beautiful like her name.

When I pray to God, I still ask Him for her, in every prostration and every supplication, after every recitation. I'm waiting for his kun. She has taught me that from His threshold, no beggar returns empty handed. So I'm a beggar standing at His threshold too, among all the things in the world asking Him for her. But He, my Lord, is benevolent. And it is easy for Him to grant me my wish.

I find myself laughable sometimes when I meet women with eyes so dark as hers, but their eyes never tell me stories like hers would. They don't carry the midnight sky and their stars in them like her orbs, neither the same universe. And sometimes I meet women with her face cuts, but when they speak they don't speak like her, neither do their smiles resemble hers. Her smile would always hide away secrets from me that would sizzle my curiosity. No one does that to me anymore; their stories don't interest me.

Nights fascinate me now. Their darkness doesn't scare me anymore. When I'm alone, I draw patterns on the empty spot beside me on the bed, imagining her to be with me instead, in my arms, and I talk to the silence I consider to be hers. The angels might call me moon struck. But what do they know of love? Had they known her like I do, they'd be moon struck too.

When it rains I read poetry to myself. And if I get time I do calligraphy too, but very rarely. Although every time I do I end up writing her name instead. So I try to keep busy myself with anything to distract me from her thoughts, but the truth is that her memories are a beautiful distraction from reality in themselves. I often wander in my mind, remembering her.

And here I see the sun falling each dusk and rising up every dawn, days passing by like wind and seasons changing, but she's not here. She's a free bird and my ribcage is empty. And wouldn't it have been sinuous to have caged her in there? So I'm waiting, and waiting, for her to come back home and rest in my heart, so my heart shall beat again, and I shall live again.

And I'm waiting, and waiting, but she's not here. And does she know what she has done to me? Burq Al Aziz, a man slave to his pride, has fallen face first in love with Leyla Khanzada, and turned into a slave to his heart instead. This is what love does to you. And this is how God teaches you: for every man has a weakness that can ashen his pride, and my weaknesses is Leyla.

Sincerely yours,

Burq.

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