Before I Could Name It

I hate how I always lose my sense of reason when it comes to you.

When I first saw you, it felt like more than excitement. It was something closer to a feeling I could not place, something strangely familiar, almost nostalgic, as if I had encountered the feeling of missing you before I ever had the chance to know you.

I don’t know when the thought of you began making my heart beat differently, then becoming something I could no longer ignore. It simply settled somewhere between our conversations, our passing glances, and the moments I found myself looking for you without meaning to.

Perhaps that is what makes it difficult.

I have become intentional in ways I never meant to be. I find reasons to be where you are. I remember things you say without trying. I make room for you in places you never asked to occupy. Sometimes, I wonder if you notice.

Sometimes, I hope you do.

I can never tell where coincidence ends and intention begins. I find myself looking for signs, not because I want to be certain, but because I want to know that I am not the only one feeling the weight of whatever this is. A glance feels different when it comes from you. A conversation stays longer than it should. A small gesture becomes something I quietly return to when I am alone.

I don’t know if the things you do carry meaning, or if I am simply giving meaning to them because I want them to.

There are days when I think maybe there is something here. Something quiet, something unfinished, something neither of us knows how to name. Then there are days when I wonder if I have mistaken your kindness for closeness, your presence for intention, and my own longing for something mutual.

I hate not knowing.

I hate that I can be so sure of how I feel and still be completely unsure of what I mean to you. I tell myself to stop looking for answers in the smallest things, yet the smallest things are enough to make me stay.

You make uncertainty feel strangely comforting.

Maybe because liking you has made me vulnerable in a way I did not expect. I could tell myself to stop. I could walk away from the door and convince myself that if you wanted me to know, you would open it yourself. But the truth is, I have already cared enough to hope, and hope does not always ask permission before it takes root.

Maybe that is what makes it difficult. I have been standing at the same door for too long, waiting for something that was never promised to me. Sometimes, I wonder if it will ever open. Other times, I wonder if I should simply walk away.

But some part of me is still waiting for the moment when you finally open it.

Not for a confession. Not for certainty.

Just something small enough to tell me that I was never alone in feeling this.

And maybe that is all I have been waiting for.

Not you, exactly.

But the possibility that somewhere between all the things left unsaid, you have been yearning for me too.