I knew your sadness before I knew your name.
I saw it in your eyes,
like anchors in those blue oceans that pierced my soul.
How thick it was — like fog in the air around you,
hidden behind charming smiles and witty jokes.

I’d known you 10 seconds
and I already wanted to take away your pain.

“I recognize you,” I thought.
From another life, maybe?

Turns out we had lived in the same other city once —
circling, orbiting, same spaces, brushing past, yet never meeting.
Until now.

Like fate had prepared us for this.

I felt terror
and lust
and longing
and hope
all at once —
and love,
though I didn’t know it yet.
(See, I’d never loved before.)

Did you feel it too?
How charged the air was anytime we walked past each other,
in the hallways, trying not to be noticed —
eyes lingering just a little too long. (I know you did.)

God, how I wanted you.

I’d have to go home and touch myself till release —
all that pent-up frustration,
knowing I couldn’t have you,
but wanting you all the same.

Until…

“Have a drink with me,” you said.

Shaking, trembling, sweating —
I went to the bar.

This is the night everything changes, I thought.

You sat there, drinking your whiskey.
My heart pounding in my chest —
I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this nervous.

I looked at you.
That sadness again —
in those oceans. Those eyes.

I reached out, touched your arm,
and in that instant:

I
Would
Never
Be
The
Same.

Those inked arms of space and sea —
I would memorize every inch
as they wrapped around me.

Arms that became a home I’d never known.

The music died when you left —
Every song reminds me of you,
so I no longer listen.

Now, all I have is a shirt.
It doesn’t smell like you anymore.
But I wear it just the same —
because it’s the closest thing I have
to those arms.

I think about that night a lot.
If I could go back and make a different choice…

Not meet you at that bar.
Not touch your arm.
Not fall in love with you, knowing how it ends.

And yet —
I’d still make the same choice.

That bar.
Your arm.
Your eyes.

Home.

Please, come home.
I’ll leave the lights on for you, always —

just
in
case.

– For NF