I saw you for maybe three minutes.
But in those minutes, you ruined me for every woman who doesn’t walk like poetry and stare like prophecy.
You came in like you’d been here before, maybe not this coffee shop, but this moment, this orbit, this unfinished sentence I’ve been carrying.
The air bent around you like it was trained.
You wore your confidence like fragrance, light, lingering, and instantly invasive.
I was mid-keystroke.
Focused.
Disciplined.
Unaware that a lifetime was about to detour through me.
You pulled off your shades like a woman who never has to wonder if she’s being watched.
And of course, I was.
Our eyes locked.
Not long enough for a conversation.
Too long for innocence.
That smile?
That wasn’t politeness.
That was a handshake between twin frequencies.
Recognition, not flirtation.
Like you already knew what I tasted like.
Like you remembered the sound I make when I lose control.
In those three minutes…
We moved to Portugal.
We argued in kitchen whispers.
You learned my scars by mouth.
I traced your freckles like maps of forbidden cities.
We fucked until the moon gave up.
We laughed until I wept.
I held your hair back while you cried into your second miscarriage.
You smacked the back of my head when I didn’t speak to my brother before he died.
We made vows in silence.
Broke them with moans.
And renewed them by accident every time our hands touched under a dinner table.
And then,
You ordered something vanilla.
Goddamn.
You had to be real, didn’t you?
Three minutes.
And now I need a lifetime just to recover.
If I never see you again, I’ll still know this…
You were fire, and I was the name you whispered to it.
Not out loud.
But loud enough that my soul heard it.