Favourite - Shane Koyczan

When I play favorites you always win

Champion of my now, and every moment after

You, are my favorite

Since the moment we met

Since the instant your welcome invasion first set foot in the unclaimed

territory of my heart

Full moon, perfect circle

I end where you start

You, are my favorite

Make a mess, of the sheets

Kill em with kindness

Latex glove ocean

Sit with me on the beach

It is not a position that warrants a trophy

There will be no prize money

You will not be hoisted onto the shoulders of others and paraded around town

like the spy, who leaked the Caramilk secret to a sweet toothed public

But you will be loved

Not only by me, but by those closest to me

By those who see how graciously you win, how you pin this smile onto my face

like a first place ribbon at a county fair where the locals still can’t believe

how big you’ve grown my happiness

This, make you my favorite

You are first, in the long line of those whos joy I wish for

All falling stars and birthday candles have been re-assigned to waxing and

shining the brightness of your days

The next beat of my heart stays, like an obedient dog waiting for the command

to speak

You, are my favorite

Close your eyes and hear the smile in my voice

As if the lone cello of your presence is filling the empty theater of my body,

evicting the hollowness that once played in me like a phantom with no

obsession to make him whole

Thank you

You, are my favorite

I know, it doesn’t sound like much

To be put before wine gums and basset hounds

I know how small and unromantic it sounds

I can only tell you that the line is long and I put you before all of it

Before trees, before green, before before capitalism killed halloween

Before the grateful ears where laughters beam

Before the starry night sleepless eyes have seen

When I play favorites you always win

I will accept all charges on each tin-can telephone conversation

I will sift through the static of long distance and translate each tiny

vibration back into words, words that leave me as breathless as the fact that

language is dying

And my heart is left trying to pronouce something that my mouth doesn’t know

how to say

Put your ear to my chest and hear it, you, are my favorite

It doesn’t sound like much

To be put before photos of blob fish and videos of kittens discovering cactuses

But I put you before hand-holding

I put you before kisses

Before «I like you» turns into «I love you»

Before the moment I knew you loved me too

You are before everything in the long line of everything that brings me joy,

you are first

You are water to my thirst

You, are my favorite

Please sit in my sky and let me polish your shine