Before Felix Looked My Way

Some stories begin long before they know what they are becoming.

Before there was a book, before chapters learned their names, there was a single poem—written quietly, without intention of destination. It was not meant to introduce a character, nor to explain a feeling. It simply arrived.

“Felix, with Black Hair and Dark Honeyed Eyes” was written in the spring of 2024, while I was in Lake Kawaguchiko, Japan, long before this story learned it would become When Felix Looked My Way.

It captures the earliest gravity of what would later unfold—the hesitation before acknowledgment, the discipline of restraint, the instinct to walk away before love has time to speak.

This poem was written in isolation, without the knowledge that it would one day belong to a larger narrative. In hindsight, it reads like a beginning that did not yet know it was one.

For readers who have already stepped into the world of When Felix Looked My Way, this piece stands as its quiet preface.
For those who have not, it remains an invitation—unassuming, unhurried.

The poem that started it all now lives where it belongs.

You may read it here.