I met a man years ago in college who had recently immigrated to America from Kuwait. He was Lebanese and I learned about his life story, his religion, and his dream to be a writer. I was his first American friend. He has since moved onward in his goals, but left behind a poem for me, circa 2015. People from all walks of life have their demons that they fight.

I am ordered to make myself anew.

In the city that eats away at the good of men

I am duty bound to obey.

Fate has seen it fit to cast me away.

From a land of verdant green forever under the shadow of the cross to a den of sin held upright by steel and concrete.

I make the necessary preparations.  I hasten to make amends.  All goes according to plan.

Until I arrive at a doorway.

Here is where it began and where it ends – no – where it must end.

The downpour turns the bouquet in my hand to a twisted dreadlock of mush.

I cast it aside and proceed to knock on the door but I pause, my knuckles mere inches away.

My hesitation stems from our last encounter and our last dialogue.

Then memories from our last moments as being friends manifest themselves unbidden.

There she stood under a doorway just as I do now.

With hair burned to an auburn yellow by an eternity under the sun’s glow and eyes belonging to both a hunter and a priestess.

Her soul was that of a wounded warrior recovering from a life I could never fathom or relate to.

Shattering what we had, the butcher’s ax still in my hand,  she left without uttering a word.

Her stride was strong and assured, too proud to abandon the walls she erected to guard herself.

I watched but did not follow.  I was but a child unaccustomed to the reality of this strange new land and its people.

If only I had known that time never waits and looks over its shoulder for straddlers

I retract my hand.

I will never return to this place

I will not mar the tranquility she has created for herself

And so I leave behind what few tokens I have of our brief but memorable time together and turn around.

My shadow will never darken her doorway again.

I lost much but she gained so much more and that brings a smile to my face.