Half the Moon
Latest news on WhatsApp أجدد الأخبار على واتسابHalf the Moon
By Saber El-Genzory
He sees half her face, flushed like rose petals—
a green eye, the nose of a pharaonic woman,
and hair like the night cascading over her shoulders,
with a few strands resting gently upon her forehead.
The other half, he finds in the eye of the moon
above the waves just before dawn—
as if the moon refuses to leave the night,
reluctant to surrender its place to the rising sun.
He whispers to her,
adoring her eyes, her lips—
drawn like a cluster of grapes
he once longed to taste
on a moonlit night of love.
How cruel is the separation of lovers.
All that remains are memories—
a few words,
a few evenings,
a few scattered laughs.
He searches for her in the streets they once walked,
asks the fortune teller, the reader of shells—
“Love is your destiny, my son,” she tells him.
He passes by the old places,
questions her balcony,
wanders through the university halls and pathways
that once held their footsteps.
Memories cross the horizon of his mind—
he sees her in dreams, smiling…
and sometimes, in tears.
She carried half of him away,
and lived the rest of her life with the other half.
She sees him as he sees her,
dreams of him as he dreams of her.
Each time she wakes and finds his face before her,
his smile visits her—
and she lives her day in quiet happiness,
until he returns again in another dream.
She became his icon,
and he became hers.
On the wall of love, they wrote their story,
and in its garden, they planted a life together.
Their messages never ceased—
souls communicating,
mystic signals sent daily
into the mailbox of dreams.
One day, a visitor stands before his painting,
“Half the Moon,”
at the opening of his exhibition.
She asks,
“What do you mean by half the moon?”
He studies her face,
and explains the work he spent a lifetime creating:
“Existence, my lady, is made of two worlds—
one we live,
and another we do not yet understand.
And the ancient essence of being
unites through both halves.”
“Where?” she asks.
“In the world of souls,” he replies,
“where we once were one—
for neither of us is complete
without the other.”
She nods, moved,
removes her dark glasses.
He looks into her eyes
as if seeing her for the first time.
Each sees themselves
within the other’s gaze.
They falter… hesitate.
She asks softly,
“Who is she?”
He summons her image
from his last dream,
and answers, with a quiet ache:
“You.”
