By: Manal Rabiey
Everything in my life was by choice—
my sadness, my joy, my silence, even my solitude.
Except you.
You came to me uninvited, like an old prophecy rising from the ashes of patience.
You settled inside me without permission, like perfume clinging to a traveler’s coat,
like sorrow etched into the deepest rib of an unhealed heart.
I did not choose you, but I broke because of you.
I never let your heart near mine, yet you inhabited me—
your features carved themselves within me,
and you blended with my pulse as if you were born there.
I always knew I couldn’t hold you for long—
that you’d leave just as mysteriously as you arrived, painful and impossible—
but I couldn’t stop you.
You left me like the seasons fleeing from ripened trees,
leaving me cold, stripped bare,
as if my heart had dimmed on your doorstep.
I am no longer who I was…
Those I chose, I forgot with ease. But you—
your absence is a slow death,
a drowning in waters no one can rescue me from.
Against my will… I loved you.
Against my will… I long for you.
Against my will… I see you in everyone who isn’t you.
