Before I Knew Your Name

I was painting beneath an old tree when the wind stole a

page from my hands.

It drifted beyond the rain,

toward a house that looked forgotten by time itself.

I knocked once. Silence answered.

So I stepped inside.

There you were— not surprised,

not asking who I was,

only looking at me

like someone

who had finally stopped waiting.

You poured the tea before I spoke,

two cups already waiting on the table,

as though my place beside you hand never once been empty.

The room was quiet.

Not empty— quiet. Portraits watched us from the walls,

their eyes holding memories I couldn’t reach.

And somehow…

nothing felt unfamiliar. I found someone

I had been missing

before I even knew his name.

Your eyes

felt like I’d known them forever.

Your smile felt like home.

We weren’t falling in love.

We were simply remembering.

Outside, the rain kept falling.

Inside, the clock had stopped at some hour neither of us noticed.

You spoke so gently

that even silence leaned closer to listen.

We never asked where we’d come from.

We didn’t need the answers.

When your hand

found mine, there was no pause,

no first touch— only the weight

of a hand

that already knew

the shape of mine.

I found someone

I had been missing

before I even knew his name.

No first hello. No first silence between strangers.

Just a feeling that had been waiting

longer than I had lived.

Then you kissed me,

slow, like the last page of a book I didn’t know

I’d already read.

For one quiet moment,

nothing was missing— not the years,

not the distance, not the worlds

between us. Only you.

Only me. Only now.

Forever was never promised.

Only this house. Only this rain against the window we never opened.

You belonged to another world. I

belonged to this one.

Yet somehow,

for one impossible moment,

the distance forgot itself.

And so did we.

When I turned around,

the house

had disappeared.

Only the old tree.

Only the rain.

Only the painting,

still wet,

resting where the wind

had first carried it away.

I never searched

for that house again.

Some places

exist only once. Some people find each other only once.

Because even now, when I close my eyes,

I don’t remember your face.

I only remember how it felt

to find you…

before I knew your name.