Before you had a name, I knew the shape of waiting. Before I knew your hands, Mine reached for something in the dark. There were nights I opened windows for no reason. There were trains I almost boarded. Cities I dreamed of but had never seen. And somewhere inside all that distance— you were already coming toward me. I didn’t know your face. I didn’t know your voice. But something in me kept leaving a space where no one else could stay. Before you had a name, I was already missing you. Before your eyes found mine, I knew the color of goodbye. Maybe love begins before two people meet. Maybe somewhere beneath time, we had already chosen the same road. You were not mine. I was not yours. And still— the world kept moving us closer. I remember standing in unfamiliar rooms, feeling suddenly that someone was absent. How could I miss what I had never known? How could a stranger leave an empty chair inside my life? Perhaps every wrong door, every unfinished love, every road I abandoned halfway, was only teaching me the distance between myself and you. And then— one ordinary day, you looked at me. Nothing broke. No stars fell. No prophecy opened the sky. You simply smiled. And every unexplained silence of my life suddenly had an answer. Before you had a name, I was already finding you. Before I touched your hand, something in me remembered its warmth. Maybe love doesn’t begin. Maybe it arrives— late— to something that has always been there. Across every city, every winter, every life we almost lived— I was walking toward you. And you— without knowing— were walking toward me. Before you had a name… my heart had already left a place for you.
