You,
Yours wasn't the first face I saw when I opened my eyes,
it might not be the last as I fade out with a doctor hanging over my head, blocking my view of the glorious sky as I finally soar away from this misery.
Yours wasn't the first voice I heard when I came into the world, shying away from my uncle's mouth as he screamed the Adhan into my ears to drive out some demons that were born within me;
it might not be the last as I go to sleep to the lullaby of nurses shouting vital signs to an orchestra of beeping machinery that has kept me alive just a few agonizing moments longer.
Yours wasn't the first hand I held as I grasped my mothers finger the first and only time she told me she loved me unconditionally;
it might not be the last as I rake my fingernails against some foreign hand to stop its owner from pricking the back of my palm again to give me a few more minutes on earth via a small plastic pipe.
Yours weren't the first cheeks I kissed as I tried to reach my fathers face with my lips as an infant while he shied away from my touch.
They might not be the last as I kiss my favorite godchild goodnight before going to sleep myself.
You weren't the first person I shed tears over as I begged the first not to leave me alone.
You will not be the last as you will soon know why.
You were not the first to break my heart as my dad sat me down one night and told me that it wasn't my fault that I would never be a son to him and thus he would never love me like one.
You will not be the last.
You were not the first boy I made a tentative playlist for with my heart in my mouth and my palms sweating like my eyes later teared when he put the CD in his bag without looking and without any intention to play it.
You might not be the last as I make my godchild a last playlist to remember me by when their nights are long as mine have been and they have an ache in their heart that no one can seem to fill.
But.
That being said.
Love,
Yours is the face I want to study longest, memorizing every plain, curve and (hopefully, when the time comes) wrinkle, every day and most parts of the night because who can sleep when the brightest star in the sky is laying parallel to yourself, whispering what you've wanted to hear all your life.
Yours is the voice I want to hear longest, be it the first deep baritone of your good-morning before you're even fully conscious. Or your hoarse, barely there whisper as you try to speak around, on the base of sheer determination, a throat scratchy and swollen with the common cold.
And especially the sleepy hum as you try to suppress your smile in the dead of the night when we're unsure if today has already become yesterday or is just barely stepping into tomorrow and no longer care for it either way.
Yours is the hand I want to hold longest from now until they snatch you away from me and lay me on those hateful, white linen sheets.
The hand I want to hold whether we whisper an 'I do', or a 'qubool hai' (I accept) to a hundred people or even just hum the songs we have found our worships in to no witness present at all.
Yours are the cheeks, the lips I want to kiss longest until we both fall into a deplorable routine we're both uncomfortable with but both can't live without.
You will not be the last I shed tears over simply because I refuse to let sadness come between us no matter how bad we think we've ruined it. I have shed my last tears, passed the last of the wracking sobs through my body until I've bathed myself in the holiest of salt-water to wipe every other trace from my body to give you the best canvas I possibly could manage.
You will not be the last to break my heart because a heart mended by the hand that bruised it, albeit accidentally, is not a heart broken. And if you do break my heart beyond repair, then these words simply aren't for you.
You are the person I want to make the most playlists for until we feel like we've heard it all and can't bear to hear a single chord more but can't stop listening and swaying and dancing to the beat.
Love, not yet lover, you are the person I want to whisper the first shy 'I love you' to; to the point that it becomes something taken for granted and then transitions into something we say averting our eyes as if its a weakness. You are the person I want to hold on to when I fall in love and then fall out of love and then fall in love again with.
Because, love, still not yet lover, love will mend us and then when the glue grows stale and we start to fall apart again, it is the thing that will keep us together simply because we've grown accustomed to holding on and clinging to what was important.
And though you might not be a lot of firsts and quite a few of the lasts will belong to other people as well, you will be the most, the held by choice and the one chosen above all else.
And that makes you pretty damned special from the rest.
Shamelessly yours,
Me.
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