Malak El Halabi

“Like a tenacious ivy, your presence clings onto the drab wall of my existence. Cling harder onto me love, like a blood sucking bed-bug who is never satiated.”

“I still smell your absence on my skin. It smells of insomnia and rusted key locks...”

“There was warmth in his large piercing brown eyes. The kind of warmth that tucks a child into bed. The same kind of warmth that dries your wet hair on a rainy December afternoon.”

“There is something charming and peculiar about a beginning. You feel it, like the change of seasons, from winter to spring, from spring to summer. You feel it; the new blood pumping inside your veins. You feel it; a thousand butterflies fluttering around your fingers to help you fly. You feel it; on your lips, when you smile at the absurdities of life that suddenly make perfect sense.You smile... Because in every beginning, there is a rebirth. Because in every beginning, there is a layer of you that you just discovered. A layer you forgot was buried in you all this time. You smile because you are reminded of the immensity of fate. You smile because suddenly you feel so small and you like it.So let's begin my dear. This life is beautiful.”

“I didn't sleep all night, thinking. I thought about you, about those puppy eyes you give me, when you fake your sadness to make me smile-- and that upper lip of yours that brings life to all of my senses. I thought about your laughter when you get tickled, and that soft mellow place near your arm pit that I wish could be knit into a pillow for me to hug all night long. I thought about your stomach, your soft and sensitive stomach, scared like a baby kitten under the pouring rain. And I remembered the feeling of protection that comes washing over me when I get a glimpse of it, the feeling of covering it with the layers of my very own skin. I remembered your head when it rests on my heart, a rock sheltering itself on the verdure of infinity. I remembered your silky black hair, and how I never imagined that hair curls so thin could twirl, in the way they do, the rigid core of my existence.”

“Count your salted wounds then name themlike the stars of a bright constellationCount your scars and bruises then give themthe wings of forgiveness to fly”

“You have the face of a man who gently caresses field flowers and dandelions. And a smile that is like a dagger, cutting the sun in halves.”

“Build my night with your cheeks.”

“The sea is in your eyes. Your face is an eternal summer. Whoever told you otherwise is a fool!”