By: Manal Rabiey
When we willed this love, neither you nor I knew that what we were doing was not a choice,
but the rebirth of something eternal — something that existed before time began.
It was as if our souls had been wandering through endless orbits,
since the very first spark of creation, searching for each other, remembering,
longing to return to what we once were before the Great Separation.
Our spirits circled through the galaxies for three thousand eight hundred and forty-six years.
Years not measured by calendars, but by cycles, awakenings, and transformations.
And within this vast stretch of time, one moment repeated endlessly:
our yearning to meet again — a moment where love dissolved into light,
appeared in existence, then folded back into the folds of absence.
In the depths of that eternal circle,
we touched for three thousand eight hundred and forty-six hours of longing and flame.
Not human hours,
but lifetimes condensed into sparks.
Each moment a lifetime.
Each touch a prophecy.
Every time I am with you, I lose my memory,
only to love you anew — not because I forget you,
but because I am reborn from you, through you, and into you.
You were my twin in the ancient lives.
We embraced within one womb,
a single being split into two.
But humanity could not bear the weight of this love.
We burned… and so did they.
Then we returned — but in different forms.
I was a seed within you,
then became your daughter.
You loved me as though I was carved from your flesh,
as if you created me to complete you, not merely to be yours.
And when longing stretched too far between us,
the dreams of reunion vanished,
and I faded from your arms,
and we were reborn again into our sacred orbit.
O beloved of all times and realms…
In every life, we meet — only to be parted by time.
But in this life, I vowed, with the seven fragments of my soul,
to love you with all of them — with every soul I ever was.
I loved you as a twin,
then as a father,
then as a son…
Then as someone who no longer knows where they end and the other begins.
Once, I was your first Eve,
created from you, and melted back into you.
In another life, I was a mother,
dissolving into her son’s love,
until no language or distance or prayer could divide them.
And now…
I love you with all of them.
This is my fourth orbit around the sacred corner of your heart.
I circle you like a pilgrim at a shrine untouched by maps,
kissing your four corners: your gaze, your voice, your hand’s warmth, and your silent ache.
I dissolve into you
as light dissolves into a greater light.
So receive me into you.
I am weary, afraid, and homeless,
and I yearn for no home but you.
