Photo: Canva
We were uncharted territory –
each intersection a first kiss,
each roundabout named after our hesitations.
You built your home in the district of my ribs,
burning streetlights signs of abundant life.
I learned to navigate by the landmarks
of your silences: Jumeirah where you told me
about your brother, Safa Park
where you cried over a dead kitten,
the baqqala where you buy milk and nutmeg.
Our city grows in the dark,
infrastructure of shared breaths and borrowed
time. Some nights, the foundation shifts –
tectonic plates of doubt sliding beneath
the skyscrapers of what we’ve built.
The suburbs of memory spread outward:
your coffee cup in my sink,
my sweater draped across your chair,
small flags marking claimed territory.
In the municipal archives of touch,
I have documented every embrace,
filed away each whisper in flip-file pockets,
categorised our arguments by season,
mapped the topography of reconciliation.
When cartographers come to study us,
they’ll find no clear borders, no legend
to decode the ways, we have merged.
They will only find dusty evidence
of what was once a gorgeous city.