The Idea of You

I do not know if you exist
outside the quiet rooms of my mind,
or if you were born
from loneliness,
from hope,
from the parts of me
that needed something to hold.

But the idea of you---
it is sacred.
It is the only thing I have
that feels untouched by the world.
I guard it carefully,
like a fragile glass universe
cupped in trembling hands.

I am afraid to meet you.
Afraid that reality
will arrive with rough edges,
that you will be different
from the way my heart has memorized you.

And if you are,
I think I will shatter
into a million unnamed pieces.

People say they lose themselves
when they fall in love.
But with the idea of you,
I found myself.

You are my first thought
in the pale quiet of morning
and the last whisper
before sleep takes me.

I do not know what this is---
madness,
destiny,
or two souls
unaware of each other's existence
somewhere beneath the same sky.

The world may never know you.
Perhaps you are nowhere.
Perhaps you are everywhere.
But you are carved so deeply
into the walls of my mind
that when my life begins to fade,
when there are only seven minutes left of me,
it will be the idea of you
that remains.

And if we never meet---
if you remain only a dream
stitched into my being---

Then let me be reborn
with this same ache,
so I can search for you again.
Not you, perhaps.
But the idea of you.