For Aamira
Time never warned me
that it could arrive swaddled,
soft-skinned,
breathing like a tiny clock learning its first rhythm.
Everyone told me time runs,
time steals,
time cuts,
time takes.
But nobody said time could be placed gently in my arms
at 11:41pm
whispering with the heartbeat of someone
I haven’t even met yet
but already know I would die for.
You came into my world like a new hour,
one I’d never seen on any clock.
A minute that rewrote every minute before it.
A second that pressed reset
on the whole universe.
I look at you,
and I realize time isn’t just something that moves forward.
Sometimes
it folds itself into a sleeping infant
and asks you to be patient.
Sometimes it becomes a mirror
showing you who you were
before you learned fear,
before you learned regret,
before the world carved its lessons
into your chest.
You are my time machine.
When you breathe,
I remember the child I used to be.
When you open your eyes,
I remember every choice that led me here.
And when you cry,
I understand that time doesn’t only pass —
sometimes it demands
to be held
and rocked
and protected
from the sharp edges of the world.
Raising you will teach me
that time is not an enemy.
It’s a teacher.
A sculptor.
A quiet architect building a future
brick by heartbeat.
Every day I watch the minutes gather around you
like guardians.
I watch the hours line up,
calling themselves promises.
I watch the days kneel at your feet,
waiting for you to turn them into stories
when you’re old enough to speak.
I have never feared time more
than I do now —
because every sunrise is a reminder
that one day you will walk away from me
toward a life I can’t shield you from.
But I have never loved time more
than I do now —
because every sunrise is another chance
to watch you learn
how to hold your head up
in a world that wasn’t built
to be gentle.
And so I make a vow
in the language of fathers,
in the dialect of sleepless nights
and quiet prayers:
I will give you every hour
that ever frightened me.
I will give you every minute
that ever tried to break me.
I will give you every second
I have left on this earth
so you never forget
that time is not stronger than love —
it is shaped by it.
My daughter,
you are the moment time changed direction in my life.
The moment it stopped counting down
and started rising up.
The moment it stopped being a weight
and became a reason.
You are proof
that time doesn’t only destroy —
sometimes it creates.
Sometimes it blossoms.
Sometimes it arrives
as a new heartbeat
placed gently in my hands
and asks me,
softly,
to become a better man.
