To the beginnings

For Layal

A beginning is never gentle,

it arrives like a letter slipped under a locked door,

addressed but unsigned.

I open it with trembling hands

inside I find not answers,

but mirrors that multiply until I forget

which reflection was mine, which was yours.

Layal,

your name begins where the paper burns,

where silence grows teeth,

where the corridors of thought

bend back on themselves.

The first step toward you

was not taken on the ground

it was taken inside a dream,

where I was already late,

already searching,

already afraid to wake.

~Q