The day that i meet you

 I breathed you in rhythms no one could follow.

The only certainty about you was your defiance of it.

Your unpredictable beauty had a gravity of its own,

and I let my breaths stumble, out of sync, as they tried to keep up.

Every blink of your eyes was a silent spectacle.

I forgot I was even there, watching.

Though I knew the secret words of the magic you cast,

I found myself dropping everything, just to marvel at the way you moved.

Perhaps what I held would have overflowed.

Perhaps your words would have sparked a fire.

Perhaps they already had.

But I never said, Stop.

I forgot how.

It was the first time I acted like an archaeologist,

casting stone after stone into your depths.

None of them ever hit bottom.

I never fully saw you.

I only imagined the whole of you,

and in that imagined wholeness, I drowned.

It was a dive no fool needed to be warned about—

a plunge that demanded surrender.

And I surrendered.

Even the way your feet met the ground left me in awe.

At 24, I became a child again, watching you.

Perhaps for the first time.

Perhaps all over again.

And yes—

I even...