I Know You Poem by Za7ra Sulaiman

o captain my captain,

I know you,
in ways your eyes will never meet,
through words shared in the quiet spaces
where we don't speak aloud,
but I feel you—
in the way your soul hums
with the weight of your duty,
in the silence between us
when you speak of love,
and I am not it.

You are kind,
handsome in ways that make me ache,
but more beautiful still,
for the way you carry the world on your shoulders
with a gentleness that asks for nothing in return.

I've helped you accept what you cannot change,
while I have never asked you to see
the way my heart swells with every word,
with every moment I am near you.
I've learned how to be nothing more
than a shadow beside you—
content to be the person you trust,
though I know the ache of not being the one
you look for in the quiet of your heart.

And so I stay.
Not as your lover,
but as the echo of someone who loves you
with the kind of love
that doesn't ask for a place at your side,
just for the chance to see you as you are,
to hold your pain,
and to know that I was here,
even if you never knew me at all.