It Was Just To See

I look for you
even when I don’t know that I do
because I’ll never run into you casually.

Not at a bar, or a store,
or in a parking lot.
Not on the street
of the only walkable part of my city.

Still, I’ve thought about what it would be like.

The smile that would take over my face before I could stop it.
The steady pulse of knowingness:
that you’d smile back,
bemused and satisfied with the universe’s tricks
and why do I know, you’d be more handsome
in the way I’ve only known
on a screen.

Or would it be mostly nerves
crackling between us,
currents of something
as addicting
as the thing that keeps us softly magnetized
in a way I wish I could shake?

That current contain years
of a will-they / won’t-they
(they won’t)
in one impossible,
make-believe second.

Mostly, I think I’d feel genuine amusement,
and a kind of silly joy,
carrying my body
around your body,
knowing I’d get to finally be myself.

Not a block of words.
Nor a carefully curated
digital presence.

Just me
and the steadiest part of my being
knowing
we’d have a good time.