The Beautiful One

Dear Saleh,

I never knew if what I wrote for you or about about you was ever enough. I mean I know you would say otherwise, but it stuck on me and it was really frustrating to not be able to write something substantial to do with the most important aspect of your daily life! I mean it's not that I couldn't write about you. I would've just jotted away pages within minutes if you'd given me an ultimatum. But the truth is, I would've never been able to do justice to it that way. I wanted to get it just right. I wanted it to be more from the heart than the mind. I wanted it to capture the essence of you. Not who you really, probably are. But what you are for me. To me.

Thank you. For being my uncertified miracle. I never quite understood the concept of a cloud with a silver lining. A ray of hope. For me, when something goes wrong, it consumes me. It blurs my vision. I may have changed on the surface over the past few years, but I'm still the same person. I still have most of my old insecurities, fears. You know what's the most evident proof of that? My hands are unsure. Insecure. But when we're holding hands, when I slip them into yours. Somehow they've stop. It's like they've found a place where they belong. And I'm not just saying this to make this post seem a little more "touchy", but it's true. It's never felt like this before. And then I look at your hands. So sure and firm. So comfortable with what is and not worried about what will become. I think that pretty much defines us. But more of our places in the friendship we share. You're keeping me together. You are my rock. Placing every little part where it's supposed to be and making sure nothing falls out of place. That I don't fall out of place.

It's you. The one with the magic. The beautiful one. It's always been you. You've always managed to capture the beauty in everything that you see. That surrounds you. No matter how asymmetrical, unfit, and shabby it is. You have a beautiful heart. One that turns everything half as beautiful as itself, once it makes a place for it inside itself.

It's like I've transformed slowly since I've known you. I've learnt to be more of me than what somebody else wants me to be. I'd gladly be whatever you wanted me to be but I stopped trying the day I realized that all I should be was me. Just as I was. It was oddly unsettling at first. But I came into my own soon enough. And now I can just prop up my legs in an unlady-like way, or eat like a child you say with my mouth full. Or pull my hair back and wear clothes that do anything but flatter me and still know that you won't judge me. And yet it doesn't make me want to stop trying for you. It makes me want to tell you every second of every minute of every hour of every day, that I love you. I love you for being yourself when it came to me.

We never really grow out of the feeling of insecurity. Throughout our lives, somewhere or the other, we're always haunted by the fear of being unwanted. Of being lonely. Of things not going your way. It's only the scales that change. The emotions remain. But I know I can move on and face all of it now because you give me strength to. You make your presence felt. It's like I can shut my eyes and be assured that everything is right because even if it's really not, you're there. When you tell me something's going to be alright, it really is. I'm so accustomed to knowing you'll be there that it's scary now. What if someday you're not? Funnily that's something you haven't taught me to deal with yet.

You know that patch of shimmering water and the skyline that you see almost everyday? Can you imagine water without the ever-changing-yet-constant horizon? It would be almost soulless. The sea itself wouldn't know where it should end. Where it's needed for it to stop. Where it would destroy itself. Or even the sky without the sea. A hollow pit, where you couldn't find anything. Not even yourself. That's how inseparable you are to me now. I just thought you should know. One of the most comforting and wondrous place I have ever known, is in your arms. And it hurts to turn over on my side, in the middle of the night, and not find you there.

I know, I know, this is probably the worst way you've ever seen anybody express themselves. But it's all that came to mind. And for what's it worth, you're still a miracle to me.

I love you. Today, yesterday and all the days before.

Yours,
Fyy