Chilling, glorious and unsettling. Among your best, Abed.

ABED! I missed you. I missed you sharing on here. I read this last night and kept thinking about it. So I woke up today determined to comment.

When I think about your poetry, there's always a story you tell that is sometimes tragic and often, bigger than the reader. More than we can comprehend. There's a wonder and awe in this, this relationship that was perhaps reckless and dangerous yet so vivacious. The parallel (if that was your intention, it just made me think) to the goddess of wisdom, of war, this presence that perhaps could satiate no human, so you follow her.

Then, death follows, a violence that holds her memory and everything changes in those moments, the world tilts.

This poem was filled with such life yet so much of the parts of life that are not the "breathtaking" moments. The violence we as readers may never know or witness in our own country. Something so macabre, especially describing such a vivid nightlife then having every laugh and dance taken away just like that. It's unsettling to say the least and heartbreaking.

<3

What a powerful poem this is!! Congratulations!!

Exceptional writing. Congratulations.

Judging Comment:

Athena the goddess of wisdom and warfare, has fallen in love with the narrator of the poem. And in it we find out how she managed to allure him. By following her they both bond together and become one. The poem that is filled with love and passion, has a tragic end.

There is a deeper meaning to this., maybe Athena is the spirit of Beirut that is dying and no one is noticing her. And perhaps she felt what’s coming, and that is why she chose to laugh and dance her final moment with the love of her life.

A very well written poem, so beautifully penned!!!