'Until He Arrived' Poem by Riza Fathima

I used to believe all men were danger
Every man who entered my life
Left with pieces of me they had no right to take.
They came with their smiles, their empty words,
And walked away with my trust,
Leaving nothing but scars deep enough
To make me hate their entire species.

I thought men didn't give princess treatment.
I thought they never notice, never care.
They only come into your life for their purpose,
Their advantage,
And once it's done, they leave you hollow.

But then he arrived.

With a gentleness I didn't even know existed.
With eyes that saw every small detail about me,
As if every breath I took
Was worth memorizing.

And God… his beauty.

He's not just handsome
He's the kind of man you can't look at once and forget.
His eyes? They're deep, like oceans.
If you stare too long, you'll get lost in them
And never want to come back.

His smile? It's like water to someone
Who's been thirsty for far too long
Refreshing, soft, and impossible to resist.

He's like a waterfall in the middle of a desert,
The first bite of sweet
After consuming something painfully spicy...
He's Like the sunlight
Right after heavy rain.

Even his laugh feels addictive,
Like music you didn't know you needed.

His presence? It's magnetic.
When he walks into a room,
It feels like everything else fades
He's all you can see.

The way he over explains things to me…
No one has ever done that before.
He never lets me go to bed with a heavy heart.
I always dreamed of a man with his words,
A man who would be possessive about me
In the right way.

He even adores my weird laugh,
Treasures my lame jokes
As if they're something precious to him.
He's the guy I always wanted in my life.
Honestly… he's made every other man
Completely unattractive to me.

I just want to care for him
The way a mother loves her son
Softly, fiercely, endlessly.

No one in my life has ever been this sweet.
He isn't just a guy to me anymore.
He's becoming my world.
My safe place.
The home I've craved all my life.

I always wanted someone
To give me a mother's love,
A father's protection,
A sibling's silly roasts,
A friend's good advice,
And a lover's devotion.
I never thought even in my wildest dreams
That I'd get all of this in one man.

But there's a saying
God doesn't send the people you want,
He sends the people you need.

And now I understand why
His timing felt slow,
Why I was made to wait,
Why I was tested so much.
Because the moment he arrived,
Every scream, every pain,
Every drop of every tear…
Felt worth it.

He came into my life
Carrying enough light
To pull me out of a darkness
I had learned to live in.

And when I felt all of this
When I realized the weight of what he is to me
There was only one truth left

Iam in love.

And now I'm scared.
Because all I have is him.

He's not just the love of my life.
He's my safe place,
My calm in the chaos,
The only person who feels like home.

Every second, I find myself falling for him even more.
And it terrifies me.
Because if I ever lose him,
I know it won't just hurt
It will destroy me in a way nothing else could.

Even the thought of losing him
Makes my chest heavy,
My hands cold,
And goosebumps rise all over my skin.
It shakes me to my core.

He's my everything.
But at the same time,
His happiness means even more to me than him.
Someday, if I have to,
I pray I'll be strong enough to let him go
If that's what it takes for him to smile again.

And if he ever leaves,
I only have one wish
That no one in this cruel world
Ever snatches his happiness away.
Because his happiness is rare,
So precious, so expensive,
That it should never be stolen
By anyone or anything.

That's what scares me most
That real love sometimes means
Breaking your own heart
For the sake of theirs.

And God, I hate my overthinking.
It eats me alive.
It makes my eyes sting with tears
Because I love him so deeply
It feels like both a blessing and a curse.

~dedicated to [ Ra'ed]