Friday the 13th
It was a windy night in Dubai,
on the highest floor of Burj Khalifa,
the crown of glass piercing clouds.
I stood, a monk, silent and bound by vows,
awaiting my fall into sky—
when she appeared.
A Persian vision, tall as prophecy,
skin aglow like hammered gold,
hips curved as desert dunes,
eyes that held forgotten centuries.
She moved toward me,
and time itself bent to listen.
“Fatimah,” she said,
her hand trembling yet sure.
We smiled as strangers,
yet a current older than memory
ran between us.
“Are you the next to leap?”
Her voice quivered,
yet her spirit flared like flame.
“If you are brave enough,” I told her,
“we will face the heavens together.”
At 828 meters,
on the ledge of all existence,
we stood hand in hand.
The wind was a hymn,
the sky a cathedral without walls.
And when we jumped,
the earth fell away—
we were not falling,
we were returning.
In the air she whispered,
“Your presence has taken my fear.”
And it was déjà vu—
the kiss of a life we had lost
and found again.
We landed on the Palm Islands,
the sea catching our breath.
She clung to me;
I clung to her.
Her lips met mine,
and Mount Athos shattered in silence.
“I am a virgin,” she confessed.
“So am I,” I replied,
“perhaps it was always you.”
And our kiss burned like destiny,
like vows rewritten in fire.
Then the Elders’ voices thundered:
“You have eaten the Forbidden Fruit.”
But I knew their warning too late—
for the fruit was no sin,
the fruit was Fatimah.
And in that moment I understood:
it was not vow I had broken,
but the chain of lifetimes—
and she was the answer
to every question my soul had carried.
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