Longing For Love (A Poem)

The heart that keeps believing there is someone it has yet to meet

I have never been in love. Yet I am overwhelmingly full of it, constantly. All this longing, this yearning, and for whom? For what? Where does this desperation come from, this need to finally meet you? And even when I do, will it end there? I am desperate to meet you, but then I will want to see you, know you, hear you, and learn all the little things about you. How could I ever be satisfied with simply meeting you?

I read books where two souls find each other and slowly become part of one another, and my heart has made a little bed for itself inside those stories. I listen to songs about wanting someone, missing someone, and loving someone, and my ears ache with the desire to understand them. I want to feel the words instead of only hearing them. I want to know what it is like when a song suddenly sounds like it was written about you.

I am tired of only imagining love. For once, let me know it. I have seen it. I have heard people talk about it. I have watched it happen in front of me. Now let me taste it. Let me hold it. Universe, I promise I will keep it safe. This yearning begins everywhere, and I cannot tell where it is going. Future darling, let me try to tell you about it. Can I? Let me be heard by you, wherever you are. Perhaps the wind will carry these thoughts to you in the meantime. Do you like the wind? I do. I have blown kisses into it, hoping one of them would somehow land on your cheek. I am jealous of the wind because it has already touched you. It has been where I have never been. It has brushed against your face before I have even known your name.

I look at the moon and wonder if you are looking at it too. I feel the warmth of the sun and wonder if its light is touching your skin somewhere. What must it feel like to have sunlight melt over you like honey? I wish I could be the sun for a moment, just to know. Or perhaps you are made of light yourself. If you are, I hope one day you find your way to me. This yearning begins in my eyes too. I see a couple walking down the street, holding hands, and I wonder what the world looks like from where they are standing. I see a kiss leave a little crimson on a woman’s cheeks, and I think, So this is what love looks like. Bright. Warm. Almost embarrassing in its happiness. She looks like she has found a new home in someone’s arms.

Then it reaches my hands. They are always reaching for something I cannot touch yet. A hand to hold. A shoulder to lean on. Fingers to intertwine with mine while we walk without having anywhere particular to go. I feel silly for believing that love could belong to me too. Still, I do. It begins in my stomach. I am hungry for it. It reaches my lungs. I am breathing just fine, but darling, take my breath away. Leave me breathless. I want to know what that feels like. I want to understand how the same thing people describe as giving them life can also leave them unable to breathe.

How strange love is. People speak about it as though it changes the air around them. As though suddenly there is more reason to wake up in the morning. I believe them because even the thought of being loved gives me hope. But I wonder what love really is. Is it more like living, or is it closer to dying? Is it the kind of feeling that makes you forget yourself, or the kind that finally brings you back to yourself?

I have never been in love, yet I feel as though I have been carrying it all my life. Tell me if this sounds silly when we meet. I have this strange belief that love is already here. It does not begin the day two people meet. It has always existed, moving quietly from one person to another, waiting to be noticed, waiting to be given. Perhaps that is why I feel so full of it even though I have never had anyone to give it to. I have always had this love somewhere inside me, waiting for you. Waiting to be shared. Waiting for you to become its witness. And I wonder what it will be like when you finally arrive. Will I recognize you? Will I know? Or will you simply be another stranger I happen to remember a little too well? Will I notice your eyes first, or your hands? Will I remember your laugh? The way you say my name? Will there be some ordinary little moment when I look at you and something inside me quietly says, There you are? There you are. The person I have been writing to without knowing your name. The person I have been saving songs for. The person I have been imagining in all those quiet moments when I wondered what it would feel like to love someone and have them love me back.

I hope you are somewhere living a beautiful life right now. I hope you are laughing. I hope you have people who love you. I hope you are becoming someone I will one day be proud to know. And please, do not hurry. Take your time. I have waited this long without even knowing I was waiting. Until then, I will keep reading the love stories. I will keep listening to the songs. I will keep looking at the moon and wondering if you are looking at it too. I will keep blowing kisses into the wind, even if they never reach you. Because I have never been in love. Yet I am so full of it.