Since you left, Paris has become a ghost town. Her streets and her trains are littered with the phantoms of our short time together. When I’m at Auber, I only think of walking you back to the RER. St. Michel gives birth to memories of our first meeting and how the earth speaks Arabic. When I walk by the Seine, I can’t help but think of that rainy day when you took me to see your old neighborhood. Cité universitaire reminds me of a muddy football match one rainy Saturday morning and images of you dancing to songs I’ve never heard in a tongue I don’t understand. The Buttes Chaumont bring back an afternoon spent eating cookies in the grass and watching the sun set lazily over Paris. Nation makes me remember taking the train a few stops too many, just to sneak a few extra minutes with you underneath the streets of Paris. When I think of Parc Mountsouris, all I can think of is how my lips carefully and softly grazed your arm while you made me practice your foreign words. The canal St. Martin makes me remember you walking on the edge trying to balance above me and sometimes having to hold on to me so you wouldn’t fall. Out of all the days I’ve spent in my office, the one I remember most is the day you surprised me with a visit.

But this is only the beginning. Even my most private places in Paris – especially my most private places – give off the scent of your memory. Written in blue marker upon my desk and etched in the roof above my bed are declarations of your love. My bookshelves are littered with books about Palestine, and our toothbrushes are in the cup that you gave me. And then there’s your hair. Your hair is everywhere. I find it on my clothes when I’m at work, in the books that I read and close to my pillow. And these are only the physical reminders of your absence. Your ghost is everywhere in my apartment. There’s the image of you standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror with me behind you caressing your eastern skin. There’s the sound of rain upon the rooftop and the memory of the love we made beneath it. There’s the image of you in the kitchen teaching me to make tabouli, and then there’s the scent of you sitting in the chair while I sat behind you smelling your beautiful curls. There’s also the song about making spoons beneath the April moon. The list goes on infinitely.

It’s amazing how powerful a few months can be, how many traces they can leave behind. The more my heart is touched, the bigger the scar that’s left behind. I think the Chilean poet speaks the truth: "love is so short, and forgetting is so long."

I still love you and wish you would come back to me,