At some point, I must’ve stepped away.
I have been elsewhere,
long enough for the air to feel different on my skin.
In a place with no clocks.
The world kept moving.
What will it be like
to step back into it?
Will the rain still taste of diesel,
or has it sweetened,
thinned out,
forgotten the shape of me?
Will my name catch in someone's mind,
or will it skim past,
light as a headline they meant to read?
To let the street pull me along,
to match my breath to the tide of bodies,
to walk at their pace
until my own slows down?
New shoes, stiff at the edges.
By evening, the city will break them in.
By evening, they will have broken me in.
Whose war is it?
What time is it?
The people don’t wait.
A door swings shut.
A train exhales and someone laughs.
Two cities.
Two selves.
One that wanders.
One that returns.
I listen behind me.
No one calls my name.
Maybe that’s a kind of quiet.