The moment you spoke,
the letters you clicked
formed words
that conjured a beautiful string of sentences,
capturing my interest at once.

For a brief moment,
your manner and character
felt like no stranger,
akin to sitting at home
with the fireplace flickering.

Then suddenly,
epiphany came rushing in.

The land we stood upon
held an invisible line between us,
detaching us without the need
to touch, hear, or see
the heavens divided by this horizon.

Maybe this was meant for ruin,
maybe this was meant as a mistake.

However,

The heart may grieve something
that feels like home,
yet cannot claim it as its own.
The mind stops it at the checkpoint;
conscience denies its entry.

The grief of something great
that never got to become a life.

When my imagination takes me far,
faith and morals hold me hostage.
In fear that my heart may betray
the very principles that made me
 — me.

But still,
my heart threatens a coup d’état.

I mourn no wedding,
but the genuine connection we made
before knowing the world
would demand we separate.

My morals are me,
as I roam this world
with their stitches on my sleeve.

My faith is my integrity:
an empathy I carry as my own,
a vocation to serve humanity.

If your feet stand upon the horizon,
perhaps you may understand
where my tears flow from.

Without my knowing,
you became the Rita to my Mahmoud Darwish.

May you be well.

-Yasmin

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Forbidden was originally published in Picture Poetry on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lights late at twilight, castled in sunset,
The sun is shy and whispers in petals:
Hues of letters that land on your doorstep,
Red, flip open and sing a little memory:
One after one in a string of the past,
Some, in hope, and the string flows ahead,
And some say, teary, the last letter was last.
Here’s my letter. The dawn was a past.

Streets of the country, queued on a drive,
Only the song knows where’s my guitar:
Strings all stringed in a metallic music,
Speaking of which, we sing a little song:
In a vast world, under cloudy skies,
Spoken, broken ties are all indifference,
Truly, we come out of clouded surmise
In letters, our letters that peek inside.

Night falls over and cloaks the city,
There, all letters are read and said:
Flickering skies in stars of twinkles,
Come and go as words on the wind:
Whisper stories and things of the heart,
Stringing together a tale of things:
In mine, I write, understanding, to part
With it, is to heal a piece of my heart.

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Picture Poetry

Cloudy Little Letters was originally published in Picture Poetry on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.