when i knew i loved you

at first sight, i knew i loved you.

but i didn’t know how to name it.

i only knew that something in me

grew quieter when you were near,

as if my heart had finally found

the place where it felt safe.

i began measuring my days

by the moments i would see you.

the crowded hallways felt smaller

when your laughter found its way to me.

the world, with all its noise,

seemed to soften around the edges.

i watched the way you carried yourself,

the unapologetic certainty of your existence,

as though you had never been taught

to shrink yourself for the comfort of others.

you took up space

without asking permission.

you spoke your mind

without apologizing for it.

you laughed with your whole chest,

and somehow,

that kind of freedom fascinated me.

at fourteen,

i didn’t know that admiration

could bloom into something deeper.

i thought i simply liked being around you.

i thought i just enjoyed your company.

but love has a way of revealing itself

through accumulation.

it was there

in the way my eyes searched for you first.

in the way every story became one

i wanted to tell you.

in the way your absence

felt larger than it should have.

and though i couldn’t name it then,

my heart already had.

it recognized something in you

that felt like home

long before i understood

what home was supposed to feel like.

nine years have carried us

far beyond those hallways,

far beyond the children

we once were.

yet when i look back,

i can still find the beginning —

a quiet certainty,

a feeling too large for language,

a love that arrived

before i had words for it.

and maybe that’s my favorite part.