I want to blame Bowers and Wilkins or Bruce Springsteen...

The whispering want my soul ached for swam out in a rush of music from his Marlboro Man-styled voice that seemed as if it could carry desperation over any distance.

I'm on Fire echoed in my ears, pulsating a reverberating need that saddled me with a desire which burned deeper than my bones.

With my knees buckling, I succumbed to more than sound as my arm quickly cradled my face and what my eyes were…

Allah has beckoned the sun to bed and his faithful to the blessing of life as they kneel for Maghrib. Post prayer and cleansing, the men meet for a gathering in the Majlis, set up by her master's servants.

She spies the Dallah - which performs an extravagant long pour of arabic coffee from its crescent shaped spout - and from afar, it dances in the amber light of dusk and…

Here we are once again at the hospital, waiting in a trauma room where it is obvious that life is tethered to ability and chance. You are on a gurney, doe-eyed and afraid, with monitors and machines behind you, and paddles on the shelf next to you, as you inquire about the two digital clocks on the wall above us and why they are set at different times. I mention to you that one is on Dubai time and the other is set at Greenwich Mean time- failing to mention that because we live in a large…

I remember the soft sound of my grandmother's voice and how her death was the quietest quake that shook the ground below me and how losing her left me changed, rocked by tremors of longing.

I remember when terror felt like drowning, how a hand over your mouth, tethered to a stone cold stare, looks like the water's surface glistening right above you as the world ripples on, oblivious and unreachable.

I remember feeling trapped when I heard the words 72 hour hold and what…