sleeper

the station takes you in as its own
as you arrive in a life that wasn't meant to be yours
when each breath was borrowed
when each pulse was bound to a contract

you start making choices answering to no one
and freedom feels precious enough
to be worth protecting
and staying starts to feel deliberate

the station introduces you to others
faces crossing your days often
enough that faces begin to matter

you learn their names slowly
you build something fragile together
shared routines
shared silence
and nothing about it feels temporary

you never really plan for permanence
you just forget to plan for the end
and you forget that your futures
were spoken only in hypotheticals

the moment arrives like a sentence finishing itself
inevitable, and devastating all the same
as if the universe waited
until you were comfortable

the station has taught you goodbyes
over and over
and over and over
yet each cycle makes you even more careless
when you start to believe you’ve already broken out

they say it gently
they always do
as if gentleness could make finality negotiable

you could go with them cleanly
fold yourself into their story and call it a future
and for a second
you want that simplicity

but something holds you here
not fear
nor obligation
but the stubborn need to see what your life becomes
when it isn’t held by anyone else

so you stay
and they go
and neither of you is wrong

so you stay
not because you couldn’t leave
but because this life
this one
is finally yours to build

here lies the dissonance:
wanting freedom and mourning it
all in the same breath

the station doesn’t fill the space they emptied
it just remembers it
quietly
patiently
indifferently

dec. 30, 2022