May

I’ve wandered through Amsterdam with the kind of stillness only distance can create. Cobblestone streets beneath me, canal lights dancing like quiet stars, people laughing in languages I don’t understand. And yet, through all of it, it’s her I keep hearing in my head. Her voice, her laugh, her name unspoken in the spaces between it all. It’s not a sharp kind of missing— not loud or dramatic — just this constant, low hum in my chest that won’t go away. Like a part of me is moving through this city, while another part is still in Cairo, by her side. I see a bridge she would’ve stopped to photograph, a flower stand she would’ve loved, a soft sunset I know would’ve pulled a smile from her without even trying. And in those moments, I don’t just miss her — I feel like I’m carrying her with me. Not because I have to, but because I don’t know how not to. She’s in everything. In the quiet, in the colors, in the way I wish I could turn and say, look at this, and see her eyes light up. She’s not here. But she’s everywhere I go. And I don’t think she even knows how deeply she lives in me.