One year goes by in the blink of an eye

But the memories remain as livid as ever.

Like silver handcuffs, they remain encased

Like cold metal, biting into fresh flesh.

The beeping machines, the white wish-wash

Clasped to perfection, sterile blue gowns like machine guns.

Your scent, there too I smelt

Your Brut cologne, my familiar safety.

Sometimes rustic, sometimes drastic

The dreams I dream too real.

Like your buttoned-up shirts, crisply lined in folded shrines

In your closet, like the graves stocked up in a new graveyard.

A peck on the shoulder, as if you are standing right behind me

A silent sunlit-smile, at the end of a hard day's ride.

But this too shall pass, like the blink of an eye

This life, this world-uneternal.

And we will meet again, tomorrow or day after

At the start of a new dawn.

Like the first chapter of a book.

A new recipe waiting to be cooked.

A new grave, waiting to be booked.

We shall yet again meet, when the sand turns cold-sweet

And the grey wind, blue gold.

Syeda Samara Mortada works at UN Women as the Communications Analyst and is a firm believer of equal rights.