I Will Know You

 I will know you

When I see you.

 

I will know it in the look in your eyes

When I see you for the for the first time

Like a spark of recognizition,

A realization of 

All that we could be.

 

You will be like a book to me,

With a pristine cover, green embossed in gold.

And your name will curl along the spine,

And lines will crack it gently,

Where others have opened you

And used you too roughly.

 

And you will be new to me.

I will call your name and it will sound unfamiliar,

You'll say mine and perhaps, 

We will have to get used to it.

 

Your book will not be open to me.

But you will know.

We will know that my fingers will turn the first few pages,

That my eyes will roam over that which you've already told me

In a thousand unsaid words

Between lines of typed sympathies

Laid out plainly in our intangible friendship.

 

And you will be real to me

Like I have tried not to imagine you as.

You will be what you are

And not what I picture you to be.

And I will love you

As you are.

Not for the place you hold in my life,

Or the way I wish you to be.

I will love you

As I've always loved you

Unconditionally.

 

I will read you.

I will turn the pages of this well-worn romance novel

Quietly placing myself

At all the parts of your loneliness,

Letting myself into your life

As you have, unconsciously, fit yourself to mine.

 

I will know you when I see you.

We will meet in some public place,

And we will both be nervous,

And I will write this poem again

Using different words.

 

And I will open your book

To a new page

And I will write my name in bold, flowing letters.