I am in love.
Not with the guy next door
Or the charming ****
Or even the bad boy

No, I am in love with the people on the streets.

I am in love with their smiles.
I am in love with their surprise when their casual How are you? doesn’t turn out to be rhetorical.
I am in love with their intense honesty when I ask them the same question in return.
I am in love with their hope when I meet their gaze, and they realize they might not be invisible after all.
I am in love with their inner artist and musician and scholar.
I am in love with their humanity

And nothing breaks my heart more than seeing their downcast gazes fixed on the hard, unfeeling ground
As if they don’t believe themselves worthy to be seen

I wish I could place them in front of a mirror
So they can understand just how beautiful they are
When someone else reassures them that they do exist.

I am in love. But I don’t know how to tell them yet.