the airport is a kinder place
when you are leaving to be loved.
everything shines then,
the rolling wheels of suitcases,
the too-expensive coffee,
the sleepy strangers slumped in their chairs.
even the waiting feels holy.
you sit at the gate grinning to yourself,
checking the time every few minutes
as if wanting hard enough
could make the plane move faster.
and when you land—
there you are.
warn hands, warm laugh, warm eyes.
the kind of warmth that settles into bone.
your clothes become mixed together in the hamper.
your toothbrush beside theirs.
your body learning, once again,
what it means to sleep without bracing for emptiness.
because there is something sacred
about turning over in the night
and finding the person you love there still.
half asleep.
heavy with dreams.
close enough to touch.
home becomes small things then.
their breathing.
their socks abandoned near the bed.
the sound of them in coming back from the bathroom.
the soft “you awake?” in the dark.
and then comes the leaving.
the airport changes on the way back.
it is no longer bright with possibility.
it is all a slow grief.
cold seats.
delayed flights.
a thousand strangers going somewhere
while you are only going away.
you carry them with you in ridiculous ways.
in the shirt that still smells like them.
in the ache in your chest
when your hand reaches across the bed
to find nothing but cold sheets.
people say home is a place.
an address.
a bedroom.
a town on a map.
but they are wrong in the quietest, cruelest way.
because sometimes home is simply
the person who makes your nervous system unclench.
the person whose presence turns survival
into living.
and without them,
even your own room feels borrowed.
even your own bed feels temporary.
you miss the place, sure.
but not nearly as much
as you miss the person inside it.
