I Met The Person I Almost Became Poem by Edith Niemeyer

I MET THE PERSON I ALMOST BECAME

[Intro]
It could have been anywhere—
a grocery aisle, a waiting room,
some little café we entered
because everywhere else was full.
Nothing announced it. No lightning, no shifting earth.
Just someone looked up, and I forgot what I was doing.
Strange, I thought. I know that face.

[Verse 1]
Not exactly mine.
Time had placed different things upon her—
a softness where I had hardened,
a weariness where I had not.
Same little line between the brows;
apparently we both worried.
I almost laughed at that.
Of all the things two lives might share,
worry had made the crossing.

She looked at me too long. I did the same.
Finally she said, "You look familiar."
"So do you."
Neither of us looked away.

[Pre-Chorus]
There are moments one knows
should feel impossible—
yet somehow don't.

[Chorus]
I met the person I almost became
on an otherwise ordinary day.
She had taken one road; I had taken another.
Neither remembered exactly where they split away.
One choice? Ten? A thousand little nothings?
Maybe lives don't change at crossroads.
Maybe they change when we aren't looking.

[Verse 2]
We sat. What else does one do
when meeting a life that might have been?
She mentioned a town I'd nearly moved to.
I mentioned someone I'd almost left.
Her face changed. Mine probably did too.

And suddenly I wondered—
How many futures have we altered
without ever knowing they had arrived?
A phone call answered. Another ignored.
Five minutes late. One unexpected yes.
A no we still remember.
The person we almost married.
The job we didn't take.
The night we stayed home.
The morning we finally left.
Such ordinary things
to carry entire lives inside them.

[Chorus]
I met the person I almost became.
I wanted to ask, "Are you happier? "
But happiness seemed far too small
a measuring stick for an entire life.
So I asked, "Do you ever wonder? "
She smiled. "About what? "
I smiled back. "Exactly."

[Verse 3]
She had losses I had escaped.
I had losses she had not.
There were names one of us knew
that meant nothing to the other.
Imagine that—
someone can be your whole world,
and in another version of your life
you never even learn their name.

For every person we have loved,
there must have been
a thousand small happenings
required just to place us in the same room.

[Bridge]
Maybe that's the unsettling part.
We speak of destiny after things happen;
we call it fate when the pieces fit.
But what name do we give
to everything that nearly happened?

The train missed. The door closed.
The letter never sent.
The stranger we didn't meet
because we turned left instead of right.
Are those lives nothing because we never lived them?
Or do they leave some faint impression—
a feeling without a memory,
a longing without an object,
the sense that something is missing
though nothing appears to be gone?

[Break]
I looked at her. Really looked.
For one dangerous second I wanted her memories.
Just to know—
what did my life look like
from the road I never took?

Then another thought arrived:
Would I surrender mine to find out?
No.
Not even the painful ones.
That surprised me.

[Final Chorus]
I met the person I almost became,
and neither of us had won.
Neither life stood taller.
Neither road came undone.
We were two collections
of consequence and chance—
two lives built quietly
from what happened and what didn't.

Before leaving, she asked,
"If you could go back, would you change it? "
I started to answer. Stopped.
Because somewhere inside that question
stood everyone I would lose if I did.

[Outro]
We walked in opposite directions.
No disappearing. No magic.
She simply turned a corner and was gone.

Sometimes I wonder whether she was real,
but that isn't the question that bothers me.
If we could meet the person we almost became,
would we envy them? Pity them? Thank them?

Or look upon our own strange,
accidental, beautifully complicated life
and finally understand—
we have been becoming
with every ordinary choice
we never knew was choosing us.

And somewhere today,
someone will turn left instead of right—
and never know
an entire lifetime just changed direction.