Poem for My Friends <3

Illustration by Yasmeen.

what sweet, wholesome thrill,
witnessing these arms, once soft with baby fat, grow strong enough to lift
me off the ground,
witnessing the slew of haircuts-
big curls, buzzed off,
pixie cuts, growing into choppy pink-tipped bobs
bangs, growing from novelty to ill-advised, awkward lengths-
watching the planes of these beloved faces sharpen over the years.
(the fact that there are years past us and perhaps more ahead, itself a marvel)

what curious, impossible wonder,
the passage of time.
how there was the winter of wandering around the city, pretending to know
the way around a cigarette better that i/you/we actually did,
the summer of open mics and picnics and so much green, of chaos, of
throwing ourselves back into the city’s maw no matter how many times it
spat us out,
the sporadic spring of tipsy tarot readings, of perhaps perhaps perhaps

& perhaps we’ll leave each other for other cities
& perhaps we’ll scatter like leaves in autumn
& perhaps & perhaps perhaps

once, we stood in rooms so warm and blood-close with love, they felt like
home,
and quietly, i’d think to myself,
what comfort,
knowing that if i reach out, this second, there will be so many arms readily reaching back to hold me.  ◆

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Haneen is a writer from Cairo—about which they think and write obsessively. Their work has previously appeared in Unootha Magazine and WarmBlue Collective. You can follow them on Twitter.