If We Had Been Born in Another Time

Perhaps, if we had been born in another time,

I would have loved you differently.

Not through hurried messages sent beneath the glow of a screen,

but through letters folded carefully into envelopes,

sealed with a kiss and carried by someone

who knew the weight of delivering a heart.

I would have written to you in the evenings,

when the house was quiet

and the lamps burned low,

telling you about the little things—

how the rain sounded against my window,

how I missed the warmth of your hands,

how the whole world seemed strangely incomplete

whenever you were not in it.

And you would have written back.

Perhaps your letters would smell faintly of your cologne,

and I would keep every one of them

inside a wooden box beside my bed,

reading them again whenever I missed you

as though your words could somehow

bring you closer.

We would not have needed much.

A walk beneath the evening sky,

your coat resting gently over my shoulders,

my fingers finding yours without asking,

and the quiet understanding

that neither of us wanted the night to end.

You would look at me

as though I were something precious,

and I would pretend not to notice,

though my heart would betray me every time.

Perhaps you would bring me flowers

for no particular reason.

Not because it was Valentine's Day,

not because you had forgotten an anniversary,

but simply because you passed a garden

and thought of me.

And I would keep those flowers

long after they had lost their color,

pressing their fragile petals between the pages

of the book you once gave me.

We would grow old slowly.

We would sit together on a quiet porch

while the afternoon sun painted gold across the floor.

Your hair would turn silver.

My hands would become softer with age.

And still, when you reached for me,

I would place my hand in yours

like I had done a thousand times before.

Maybe love was always meant to be this simple.

To know someone's favorite song.

To remember how they take their tea.

To notice when their smile is pretending.

To wait for them at the window.

To choose them on ordinary Tuesdays

when there is nothing beautiful happening at all.

I do not want a love

that exists only in grand declarations.

I want the kind that survives silence.

The kind that stays

when beauty fades,

when youth becomes memory,

when conversations become familiar

and the excitement of first meetings

has softened into the comfort of knowing.

I want to be loved

in the quietest ways.

A hand reaching for mine beneath the table.

A whispered “come here” after a difficult day.

A familiar voice calling my name

from another room.

And if there is another life after this one,

I hope it finds us again.

Perhaps in another century,

under another moon,

in another little town

where time moves slowly

and love is still written with ink.

I hope I recognize you.

And when I do,

I hope you look at me

with that same quiet certainty—

as if somewhere,

in some forgotten lifetime,

we had already loved each other

and were simply finding our way home.