November 13th 2019

Something in me is trembling this week. These feelings, whatever they are, are growing louder, heavier, more insistent. Yesterday, driving home as the sky bled into dusk, I thought of you and suddenly the tears rose without permission. It was like a wave from somewhere ancient, swallowing me whole.

I keep sensing you slipping further away, and the idea of losing you, of losing something I’ve never even truly had, feels impossible to bear. How do you grieve a ghost that lives only in your chest? How do you miss someone who has hardly touched your life, yet somehow touches the deepest parts of your soul?

You are a stranger I know too deeply. A presence I barely speak to, yet feel everywhere. We orbit one another quietly, politely, no real words, no shared life beyond brief moments in passing. And still, something in me aches for you in a way I cannot rationalize.

I hate this feeling some days. I hate the way my heart reaches for you like it recognizes something I don’t understand. You have your life, your steady, real, ordinary-magic life. And here I am, on the edge of something nameless, feeling foolish for longing after a person who may only ever see me as background scenery. A faint flicker in a crowded room.

But when you are near, when your presence comes into my space, everything inside me shifts. It is as if my heart expands and becomes weightless in the same breath. A soft electricity hums through me. I feel seen, even when you don’t look. I feel known, even though you know nothing of me. It is peaceful and overwhelming all at once.

I have never felt this before. Not even once. And it frightens me, to feel such depth for someone I have never touched, never claimed, never spoken my truth to.

What is this?

What are you to me?

And why does my soul lean toward you like it remembers your name?