In Love with a Familiar Stranger

There are no perfect words for this, but let me see if I can try.

You feel like a paradox; someone I’ve never truly known, yet somehow my soul recognizes you without hesitation. It’s really strange how I can look at you and feel a sense of belonging, even though I’m still learning who you are. You are both a mystery and a memory, both unknown and unforgettable. You feel like someone I’ve known forever, and yet when I look closely, you’re still a mystery. You’re a stranger in so many ways, but my heart keeps insisting it has met you before maybe in a dream, maybe in a prayer, maybe in a memory that my soul has tucked away.

There’s something about the way my thoughts circle back to you, like a song that refuses to leave. You are not just a face I recognize, you are a presence that lingers, a rhythm my heart seems to know by heart. Every time I think of you, it’s like I’ve stumbled upon a part of myself I didn’t realize was missing. You feel like home, and yet you’re still a door I haven’t walked all the way through. I want to sit with the familiar in you, but I also long to explore the stranger you still are.

There’s a softness in the way you exist in my mind. Not loud, not forced; just safe and

steady, like a whisper that does not go away. My heart knows your rhythm, though my hands haven’t held you fully yet. And maybe that’s why I call you a familiar stranger because you’ve made a home in my heart before I even had the chance to map you out completely. I find myself smiling at the smallest things because they remind me of you, even though I cannot claim to fully know you. And maybe the beauty of all of this is that I get to discover you, piece by piece, layer by layer, while still being comforted by the strange familiarity that says, you belong here.

I wonder if souls know each other before bodies do. If maybe, somewhere in eternity, mine brushed against yours and promised to meet again. Maybe that’s why every word you speak feels like déjà vu, and every silence between us feels safe. It’s raw, it’s confusing, it’s almost too much for me to admit, but here it is: I am in love with you. A familiar stranger who has quietly become the loudest echo in my heart.

I can’t pretend it isn’t raw neither can I pretend it isn’t real, because it’s more real than I expected it to be. I’m not just intrigued by you, I’m moved by you. Drawn to you. In love with you, though you still carry that mystery of a stranger. And maybe, with time, I won’t have to call you a stranger anymore. Maybe, with time, the familiarity will turn into knowing, and the knowing will turn into forever.

And maybe one day, I won’t have to call you a stranger anymore.

But until then, here’s my truth:

I am in love with a familiar stranger.

And that stranger is YOU.