It Began With You, And It Will Have to End With You Too

On Longing As A Right

It all began with you

It may have all began with her first, but through her, came you, and with you, that part of life truly began

It all began with you and now, it all leads back to you

My first manifestation of longing, my first bout of possessiveness

The first time I dragged a girl to the school bathroom demanding that she erases your name after she had written it next to hers

‘Mine to be close to, mine to be known by, mine to know’ I thought to myself

Through years of not-so-ambiguous ambiguity, A knot has formed within me that only you can untie

When he looks and smiles at me, I wish it were you sitting near me

I am not sure who I feel more sorry for;

Every laugh, every smile, every gesture, every game, every verse, becomes a question:

Would he have laughed?

Would he have smiled back?

Would he have sat closer?

Would he have let me win or would he be ruthless in his teasing?

Would he have let me read him what I’ve let so many strangers know about him?

Your presence has coloured my youth

And your absence now colours my surroundings

I feel sorry that I cannot accept a love so readily being handed to me, because I would rather wait for yours, and if it never comes then I will wait still,

And I feel more sorry for him, because the love he so readily hands me, is what I would hand you a million times over

It all began with you, and today it still begins with you,

You were my beginning, and I was yours

The first sweet voice I heard on the phone when I was away

The first late discussions going nowhere that I kept making longer

The first sweeter voice still vowing to take care of me today

The first sweet presence I long to embrace soon, yet never soon enough

You were my beginning, You will be my end

I wait to see if I will be yours as well, so I may know if by any chance, I happened to be your beginning too

-نائلة