But You Didn't Find Me

I’ve met you several times.

Met, I guess, is the wrong word--maybe,

“known.”

I’ve known you several times,

like a person “knows” their great aunt twice removed on their father’s stepfather’s side

who only ever tells you

how big you were the last time she saw you

and how much you’ve grown.

See,

I’ve known you since you were four years old;

blue eyes full of youth,

red hair and the freckles to match,

standing at the end of a hallway in what I came to know as my second home,

waiting for me to walk down the makeshift aisle

only to tell me that the perfume 

I had somehow got from my mother

made me smell like candle. 

But, 

like that great aunt or someone--

whoever it is--

that doesn’t really count for much when you grow up.

You've changed several times since then.

I’ve known you

even when I didn’t know you. 

Even when I wasn’t sure that you existed. 

When you were absent in the support of my parents,

in the gentle urges that I needed

to be better, 

in the empty reminder

that I didn’t need to be someone I wasn’t,

and in the ever increasing number fixed permanently 

between my feet. 

Even when I didn’t believe I was good enough

for myself,

much less other people,

much less any version of you

I could ever encounter.

I’ve known you in the lyrics

of some guy’s stupid songs that stuck in my mind

for four years too long. 

In the shouts I mistook for your voice,

in the compliments

only paid to me in return of favors,

and in other languages

to appease those who agreed I wasn’t good enough.

I’ve known you

in all these ways,

forgetting how much you might’ve changed

over the years

and focusing on my last glimpse

of who you once were to me. 

But now,

I’ve met you.

And you’re different than

any version of you that I’ve ever known. 

You care for me

regardless of physical manifestation.

You never spare my feelings if the cost is 

honesty. You

remind me of everything I grew up with and

everything I thought

I could live without. 

You

know my interests, make fun of

my childishness,

and encourage my passions, even though I know

you don’t understand them,

but you understand me in the way

I never imagined I’d be lucky enough to find. 

You disregard my compliments,

like I do yours,

and believe you’re not deserving,

though the arms that wrap around me when I’m upset and the

lips that kiss my shoulder blades

make me beg to differ.

I find--in you--something

I’d always thought I’d known,

but now have truly met. 

The stupid smile,

the unexpected patience,

the love of mystery and detective shows.

I know

some only know you in four letters

but I’ve found you in seven.

In the sound of my name on your lips,

in the understanding of my past and the promise

of a lighter future. 

I’ve met you in my laughter,

in your obsession with blankets and mountains of pillows,

in the only eyes

that could ever rival my own. 

I’ve found you

in the crack of your voice on the phone. 

In the tears I know

were rolling down your face. 

In the way you told me how unfair you were being

and the way I just want you

to be happy. 

I’ve found you 

in love songs I 

never gave credit to. In RomCom’s

I never could stand. 

In writing everything I love about you,

in some vain effort to keep you close to me

even when

you’re so far away.

I’ve found you in my silence. In my

seven hours of tears,

one for each letter in your name;

one for each week I spent realizing what I

had found in you

just to have it torn away.

Some only know you in four letters. 

But I’ve written you

so many more. 

I found you.

But you didn’t find me.