u/Independent-Ad8058

to my soulmate

i have yet to meet you
but i already know the shape of your absence

it sits with me at night
like a question i can’t stop asking
softly
repeatedly
as if repetition might turn it into truth

i wonder if you are real
or just the way loneliness learns to speak
in the language of hope

i imagine you in fragments
a laugh i haven’t heard yet
a name that still feels unfamiliar on my tongue
hands that haven’t touched mine
but somehow already feel remembered

some days
i think i pass you in crowds
two strangers brushing past each other
without knowing
we are both still becoming
for each other

and it aches
this almost life we haven’t lived yet

because i have practiced loving you
in all the ways no one has taught me how
patiently
quietly
faithfully
as if waiting itself
could build you closer

but there are nights
when i fear
you are not delayed
just never coming

and still
i leave space for you

in my future
in my softness
in the part of me that still believes
someone out there
will not make me beg
to be chosen

i learned early
that love
could live beside leaving

that someone can stay
without ever truly
being there

you were a door
always half open
half gone

i spent years
trying to become
easy to keep

quieter
smaller
less heavy
in the hopes
that one day
you would choose me
fully

but there was always
something else
pulling you away

something lonelier
than i could understand
as a child

so i grew around
the absence

like flowers
leaning toward light
that never stays long enough

the cruelest part is
i still search for you
in people who know
how to leave gently

i still confuse
small kindnesses
for love that stays

because when you grow up
learning affection
can disappear overnight
you begin accepting
anything that lingers

even if it hurts

even if it is temporary

and somehow
the child in me
still waits at the window
believing one day
someone will choose
to remain

without being asked

without making me
feel difficult to love

and even now
there are days
i miss something
i cannot fully name

not a person
not a memory

just the feeling
of what it might have been
to be loved
without having to earn it