Almost

These three poems are about connection that never quite lands — and I wrote them in the opposite order from how they sit here. Chance came first, in the winter of 2024, right after something real fell apart. Strangers followed that spring, when the rationalizing stopped working. Wonder came last, in the fall of 2025, my final semester at Auburn, when I'd finally found a gentler way to hold the whole thing. Reading them front to back walks the arc the other way: what could be, what was, what ended.

Wonder is about the people you never meet. I'm more introvert than not, but I love keeping track of everyone around me, including people I've never spoken to. That last semester I kept recognizing faces — the same strangers crossing my path week after week, each one carrying an entire life I'd never know anything about. There's a comfort in that repetition, and a kind of beauty in letting them stay strangers.

Strangers is the emotional side of the same ending Chance reasons about. In the moment, you can't stop the feelings by telling yourself something wasn't meant to be — the argument doesn't reach that far down. It also carries the other side of the argument, the one that's harder to say out loud: was it not meant to be, or was it a lack of effort?

Chance is where it started. I didn't believe in coincidence until I met someone who made everything line up — the same obsessions, the same instruments coming back out after years, laughing to the point of tears. A connection that true feels like proof of something. But chance works in both ways, and some things just aren't meant to be. That's the harsh reality this one deals with, as plainly as I could manage.

Wonder

As I walk by you down the street Or sit down in the same room My heart doesn't skip a beat And nothing between us will bloom I can't say we've ever spoke Not even a "good morning" I haven't seen you laugh at a joke Nor give a friend a warning Yet as I see your face I get a sense of comfort Because if we keep on passing by You might share my wonder

Strangers

She consumed every thought in my head And I'm not going to pretend she doesn't anymore But to her I might as well be dead And to me she isn't much more I know what we had was real Or at least the idea gives me comfort I know the circumstance wasn't ideal But I thought that we would come first So we slowly drift to strangers Our minds have been made up And I know I can't change hers Or even fill up my cup

Chance

I didn't believe in coincidence until I met her Suddenly everything becomes one At first glance made my stomach stir My amount of doubts were none From the names of our future kids To the obsessions we held under lids Recreating the perfect girl in my head Must have been bound by thread Playing instruments that hadn't been used for years Laughing to the point of tears Talking about what makes us fulfilled I thought this feeling would never be killed But chance works in both ways Whether circumstance or daze Some things don't work