The Eternal Moment Before We Met

I am standing at this crosswalk because I have already walked across it a thousand times. My yellow shirt is bright—a loud scream of sunshine in an asphalt city that forgets the sun exists by noon.
You are coming toward me from the other side, yet you arrive exactly when I leave. The beauty lies here: we only meet at the precise moment our paths diverge. To embrace you would be to erase us; for if we stop moving, time collapses into a single point where neither of us ever existed in motion.
I feel your warmth before you touch me—a ghost-heat from an encounter that hasn't happened yet but has already defined my life. My socks are dotted with colors like small planets orbiting a truth I cannot speak: the more we love each other across this street, the less likely it is we will ever stand side by side.
I adjust my hair and smile for a camera that records everything except what matters. You glance at me—a brief flicker of recognition from two strangers who have known one another for centuries in a single second.
We are healing each other with our absence, mending broken hearts through the act of never quite reaching out. I love you because we will always be about to meet; and it is only by staying apart that I can finally feel how close you are.

Editor: Paradox