I was a man of concealment, Hayfa'a. I buried the searing longing deep in a sorrowful fissure at the bottom of a well. I entrusted my secret to the dark, far from the eye of the sun. I held my breath lest the wind scatter it, and I crushed the cries of pain rising from my soul. I hid love in my innermost depths and lived drained of strength. However strong I appeared -- like the concrete of a high tower, like the bedrock of a mountain -- suppressed love, Hayfa'a, breaks every defense. Your love is my first secret, sealed in the darkness, known only to me, beyond the sight of any watcher.

I was closed off, resistant to confession. I would not entrust my secret even to my shadow. Not even death could wrest a sliver from it. Only the grave, once sealed, would hold it if death came for me. Yet its concealment crushed me, Hayfa'a -- ground me like pulp beneath merciless hooves, like flesh beneath the sharpest blades. The locked secret gnawed at me like a saw; my resolve crumbled like sawdust devoured by flame. Incomplete love, Hayfa'a, seethes and rages inside me like a volcano.

Two years of this love, Hayfa'a, and they have brought me to the threshold of sixty. In silence I chew my disappointments from every direction. I try to hide from you the confusion in my eyes, yet your eyes see and do not understand. Mad longing sets fire to my veins; a hawk thrashes inside my chest, caged between ribs consumed by flame.

This half-love swept me away against my will, Hayfa'a. I cloaked myself in secrecy, withdrew behind walls of solitude. To confess in a love borne by one alone is shame -- a trampling of dignity. Concealment becomes honor when weighed against disgrace. How harsh this love is, Hayfa'a, how heavy upon the one who loves.

In the hell of incomplete love I prayed alone, without congregation. The one I longed for never asked about me, never knew I was crucified by this unbalanced love even while in her embrace. A love without reciprocity is an injustice sharp as a crocodile's teeth.

Jazim -- a remarkable man: my teacher, my comrade, my party superior. One day he knocked on the door of my heart, weary with the burdens of love. He probed my depths like a seasoned physician, and with a sudden, piercing question, as we walked together along the pavement, he said: Why don't you pick a flower from this garden? The garden is before you, the flowers within reach -- pick one! Do not let the blossoms of your life be devoured by sheep!

At that instant, I felt the physician's probe strike the very wound. I felt my comrade recognize my affliction, like a seer discerning the hidden fire. And in my bewilderment I asked myself: How did you pierce so deeply into me, companion of principle and self-critique? How did you hear the beat of my pulse, the restless flutter of my heart?

How hard my condition is, as I hide within me a love that has grown larger than I am. I never confessed my wound to my comrade. I tried to brave the deep gash in my soul. I denied both cure and illness while the fire greedily kindled in my being, and I struggled to smother it in moments of confusion, while shame folded me like a letter. I ask myself: how can I ask for her hand when my arm is dislocated at the shoulder? How can I ask for her hand when my state is tighter than the eye of a needle?

How could she accept me for a life and a future when I am wilting, crushed before the sun like a candle -- diminished, impoverished, with no rank, no money, no house worthy of a queen? How can I overcome this fierce, hoarded love when she looks upon my face each morning and passes by me in dreams like a sea breeze?

I gather my scattered pieces, collect the remnants of myself, and resolve to reveal to her this vast love. There is nothing wrong with sailing my words from the ends of the earth and crossing the sea. There is nothing wrong with doing what my comrade the leader does with Professor Hamed in class. I will wait no matter how long, to stretch out my conversation with her. I will marshal every reserve of words I own to tell her about me and about the flames of love that burn within my heart.

And when the moment comes to begin -- the moment slips away while I labor as one carrying a rock too heavy for him. I appear like a car that breaks down at the first turn; the words vanish and not a single one remains. I dissipate and fade with them. It is as if Hayfa'a holds a charm, a magic that scatters every sentence; nothing of me remains but an embarrassment like an earthquake.

The courage I had built month by month to confess to her collapses in an instant into rubble and dust the moment her eyes glance at mine. My face darkens and pales; it goes yellow, flushes, then darkens again; my tongue knots into speech I do not understand -- trembling, quivering like a spindle. The arrows of her enchanting gaze pierce open tunnels and caverns in my heart, and I am left to drag my ill-fated destiny behind me -- defeated, broken, and disgraced.