Eternal Promise

The Love Song of Habibi and Rohi

Habibi:

Close your eyes, let me show you what love is.
It’s not something you can see with eyes.

Breathe it in, it has a scent.
Open your ears and hear it, it’s everywhere, in the air.
It’s something you see with your heart and soul.
I don’t want to speak to you with mere words.
I want to speak to the depths of your being.
I want to touch the parts of you where nothing else can reach.
I want to talk to you — spirit to spirit, soul to soul.
Release yourself and let me show you what it really means to love,
with everything inside of you.

Rohi:

Something in me knows what love feels like.
Something in me searches everywhere for it.
something in me leaves every place I have gone unsatisfied.

By now, should I not know that I cannot live without you?
That love is not what I imagine it to be but something more…
You make all the love songs feel like breeze.
You make all the poems fall short.
Love with you is like air, I’ll die without.
But why do I wonder if these other things will love me too?
Why do I want love to look like what I want it to?

With you, love will make me long to be anything.
I will be an open book for you, read my soul;
I’ll be a song, sing me aloud;
I will even be canvas, to paint your love, paint it all.
Then, the hue of my skin will whisper your name
and the very depths of my existence will serenade you,
because this is love -
where the very thing that consumes me is what keeps me alive!
And this is where my problem lies, I want to control how I feel.

With you, I lose control.

Habibi:

And yet, our love will never be equal.
For however deeply you think you love me, I’ll always love you more.

Can’t you see that with me your heart will meet its desire and wonder if it is still alive?
That every day you will wake up to reality, the kind that still feels like a dream,
that everything can be upside down but our love will keep you in a cocoon of peace,
that you will hop around in joy even when everything around you tries to tear you down.
Can’t you see that my love for you is like music?

So many beats and notes and lyrics.
So many stories, lifetimes, aches and dreams
woven into the sounds of instruments, wind, rain, skies, and leaves.

Fall in love again with the hands that made you Rohi,
Love again like you remember what the deep scars in my palms did for you.
Because what is love, if not the very deepest form of worship?