When you tell me you love me for the first time, promise you will not say it during sex. I do not want our lips to part for a single second. Promise me you will not say it when we are drunk on tequilla and lime, when the salt has coated our mouths and I can taste it with every kiss we share. Promise me you will not say it when we are out for dinner, spending money we do not have on food too expensive for its own good.

Promise me you will not say it when I'm sleeping next to you unable to memorise the curl of your lips as you whisper it, too dark to see the tears on our faces. Promise me you will not say it on Valentine's Day or birthdays or Easter or Christmas. Please, don't ruin these things for me.

When you tell me you love me for the first time, make it mundane. Make it uneventful. Make it like we've been saying it for a thousand years because when you stop saying it , I don't want to be reminded of it every time I kiss someone new or I smell citrus or eat or I fall asleep or on any holidays at all. Please, do not taint my life with your love and then your absence of it.