By Dr. Adnan Bouzan

I sat there, on the old wooden bench worn away by seasons of absence, watching the ships glide gently on the water’s surface like lost wishes that never found a harbor. The sails bent shyly toward the sunset, as if apologizing for a delay that was not their fault.

I gaze at the horizon where your voice has faded, hoping you might appear—between the waves, among the faces of travelers who never look back—in a waving hand, a scarf carried by the wind, or even in a shell cast ashore, whispering your name without sound.

I sit with the universe closing in around me. I rest my head in my palms, as if to support it from collapsing. Everything around me speaks of you; even the sea pants with sorrow, and every wave crashing against the ship feels like a slap, saying: “You are too late.”

I used to see you always in my dreams, standing there on the ship’s edge, holding in your eyes all my unanswered questions, and in your hand a linden blossom faded from waiting. Your voice—when you whispered to me in dreams—was lighter than a breeze, yet stronger than a storm.

I say to you:
“Come... for the world without you is but an incomplete chapter in a story unread.”
You smile... and dissolve into the mist, leaving me your scent... and my pain.

Years have passed, and I come to this pier—not just to see you, but to keep your promise, and remind myself that once a woman said:
“Don’t forget the covenants of love between us.”

And I have not forgotten.
I have not forgotten your laughter as we chased swallows on a summer unlike any other. I have not forgotten how you used to write my name on rain-streaked windows, as if engraving a vow for lovers. Nor have I forgotten... your last words to me—that the Euphrates is choking.

You were withered...
No, you were a scar upon spring’s face.
Your face, once like a Kurdish morning in April, became like an old page in a soaked book, distorted by sorrow.

I asked you:
“What has befallen you, my rose?”
You whispered, as if gasping for the last time:
“They have strangled the Euphrates, my love...
The dams stole its songs,
And I was one of its flowers.”

At that moment, the whole world shrank within my eyes.
I heard nothing but the cry of the water.
Even my tear—that which always shied away from falling—slid down my cheek like an autumn leaf from a tree exhausted by longing.

Then we parted...
Parted like shores part from migrating birds.
And I remained alone, counting footsteps that will never return, writing you on the face of the waves, painting your smile on the sea foam,
While you are there...
In a place unknown to me, yet I believe you are watching me.

And whenever the sunset comes, I drift in my imagination toward the shore you left, where we used to count wishes and scatter them across the clouds.
I always see you standing there, with a body made of illusion, and eyes full of pain, saying what you never finished:
“Don’t forget...”

And I have not forgotten.
I still love you...
And I will continue to write you on the pages of the wind,
Draw you on the shadows of the boats,
Whisper your name to every linden flower born by the river,
Hoping it carries your scent in a moment of metaphor.

Because you are not just a woman...
You are the poem I bled,
The homeland from which I was exiled,
The river that withered,
And the love that never dies.