I wake up in the middle of the night, holding closer the photo-frame that has your picture…
And I find my drowsy self uttering your name and telling you that I love you…
This happens more than once every night ever since you’re gone…
And I take this as my ultimate sign of falling in love, for the same used to happen to me in the handful of times I fell in love with someone…

You remember the first girl?
I told you about her and how things eventually soured between us…
Yet one thing that happened when we were together and shortly after we parted is waking up in the middle of the night, each night…
And I’d take up my phone, write a small text of appreciation and of awe to all the beauty that I saw in her, and then I’d immediately go back to sleep…
Every morning, I woke up, and I’d be startled by the message, wondering whether it was really me who sent it…

Fast-forward years later and then I met another one,
And I knew I was done for the moment the same phenomenon started happening to me,
although that time around I held myself from being expressive and sending texts during the night…
This infatuation of mine lasted for weeks until it was replaced by someone else…

And then comes your turn, my brother…
I wake up dazed several times during the night to recognise the beauty that was found and that is still found in you…
I utter the words that you used to tell me often, “I love you”,
And even though sometimes I think that you’d be weirded out by this sudden one-sided burst of bromance in our relationship,
I also know that your tender heart would understand where this is coming from and that you do respond to those midnight pleas of mine with more love…
And maybe, just maybe, one night my drowsy self would be taken by surprise when it gets to hear your response with my own ears…