swimming

some moments
already capture the core of it.

you don’t know someone,
not really,

and yet there’s something strangely familiar
in the way they exist.

not like I’ve met someone like you before,
more like I found something of myself in you.

I see the resemblance from afar
in pieces,
in gestures,
in things I can’t quite name.

And maybe that’s what scares me.

not who you are,
but what I might recognize
if I come any closer.

still, I can’t look away,
even with all this fear
of what might come next.

there is this need
to keep learning how to describe you,
to capture your look
before it disappears into something
I no longer know how to name.

there is a story in you
waiting to be told,
a legend beneath the surface
waiting to be heard.

and I keep reaching for it,
getting tangled in the feeling
even if it means getting doomed.

Getting tangled with you,
even as the water rises,
even as I begin to wonder
whether I am learning how to swim

or only getting ready
to drown.