While You’re Still Here

You hold my hands and tell me they are too cold.

You scribble on a piece of paper, pausing every two minutes to remember. Your memory isn’t what it used to be. But you try anyway. 

Scurrying around, you open drawers; pots; pans.

You stub your toe as you frantically move around dicing the cilantro. The knife in one hand, a bosimat in the other. You burn your finger as you open the oven, even though you know it’s hot, and rip the bread open.

It breathes out warm steam.

You ought to be a doctor,  for your handwriting is indecipherable. 

You read out loud…

INGREDIENTS:

100 grams (3.5 ounces) chickpeas

une cuillère of baking soda

1â½ tablespoon tahini

the juice of half a lemoon

ein bisschen of vinegar 

1½ tablespoon extra virgin olive oil + 1 tablespoon to drizzle on top (optional)

½ clove garlic crashed

a pinch of malh

¼ teaspoon cumin

1 tablespoon maya

handful of pine nuts (optional) : paprika and/or cayenne pepper / cilantro / parsley 

drizzle of huile d’olive

I fold the piece of paper smoothly. even though it is stained and creased and ripped from one of your old notebooks. I keep  it close.

For now, you are here.

You open up the newspaper, the way you do each morning, licking your fingers to turn each page.

Browse through the weather forecast. The daily headline. Even the football scores.

you find the page.

we read it together.

we find our names.

You stay quiet. You are never quiet. You are restless and impatient and passionately opinionated…

You never said goodnight.