Afreen

     People say love is red that it hits you like a truck and suddenly you are changed forever. For them love is angles and calculations, without trials and tribulations. It’s flowers and chocolates, completely generic coated in the same pinks I have known my whole life. For me love is blue, and gray, love is brilliant, burning white. Love washes over you and soaks your skin, it grips you slowly before enveloping you like a blanket. Love is a storm awash with ache. Love is battered, and muddy, somber and shattering but that’s the beauty of it. Love washes away all the scars  and stains on your skin. Love is pure, love is warm, love is comfort . Love is Afreen.
      Afreen with her wild black hair and green eyes. She walks as if she floats, her hair trailing behind her in big bouncing curls, as she struggles to move it from her face. In the sunlight it shines, and the edges become a golden brown, making her glow. When she ties it up, the curls fall around her face, framing her glasses as she tries to look serious. And her eyes. Her gorgeous green eyes, piercing into you. They are the most breathtaking thing in the world, because they know you. Her eyes seem to known you, they have a wiseness in them, and a kindness unlike any I have ever known.  They tell a story because that’s what she is, a storyteller. Passionate and violate. She’s like a bird.  
Her voice is like slowly melting chocolate. Husky and rough, but with the right undertones of sweetness. Soft, with odd cadences and rhythms that match her tone and excitement.  Words that are clear and rounded, as though she’s swallowed them before setting them loose, but also slurred like a whisper, with a husk that’s only accompanied by starlight and pillows. And the words themselves. I  could get lost hearing her talk, and often I do. It doesn’t matter because she’d just keep going on and on about the ideas that occupy her thoughts and I could just watch the way her mouth moves and how her face wrinkles with displeasure and suddenly lights with amusement. The way her  hands move in tandem with her words, flitting across the table as they dance in time to her thoughts.
       They hold worlds inside them. How they light up a canvas with their brilliant, bold strokes. How they move so effortlessly across a keyboard. Her every breath serves to create, it’s inside her.  Her art claims her, it consumes her and she is so much more beautiful for it.
One could almost forget she was human if they looked at her too long. Her face shies away from any imperfections. You could lose sight of her fears and sorrows by the way she laughs, with boundless joy etched in her face. But she is human, my Afreen. The way she cries in sharp gasps that pierce your heart every time she draws a breath. Her tears continue to fall so long that I fear she will never stop. Her face seems twisted as though she will never be whole and my heart thunders in my chest and an aching sorrow for my Afreen consumes me. So I pull her close to my chest and rock her back and forth, knowing that in time she will come together. She’s strong, she wipes her eyes , takes a breath and steps out into the glaring spotlight of the world. “You pick up the pieces and you move on,” she says. “That’s what you’re meant to do.”
Then she continues to show the world just how strong she is. The lights dim and she is tingling with anticipation in the darkness. The lights come on and she flashes a brilliant smile, and suddenly she’s arms and legs, beautiful stretches and imagery. God, how she dances on that stage, filled with poise and elegance. Her performance is so raw, and full of life.  She’s undone and she flies across the stage, transcendent. She feels, and she talks and you can see it. She is endless. Her performance leaves you awed. This is Afreen.
However, my favorite thing about Afreen is the rain. She is an angel in the rain. As though she’s lost all sense and rooted herself into the earth. Her hair damp on her forehead as she jumps into puddles, spinning, her head facing the heavens. It is so powerful, and so innocent. She is the wind whipping through the trees and she is the droplets trickling down the window pane. She becomes the bursting clouds and the pinks and the purples of the sky paint her until she becomes brighter than the sun.
        Afreen, oh Afreen. She’s seeped into the darkest recesses of my soul. She is my light and my strength. A salve to my wounds, she lights the darkest nights, illuminating my world. She is ever changing, all consuming.  She is the wind, she is the world. She is Afreen.