The Space It Returns To

Quietly, not with pomp or thunder,

The light leans through the same window every afternoon.

Almost missed.

Mistaken for something else.

But there’s a familiar angle.

A remembered warmth on the back of the hand.

It fragments,

Awakening a scent remembered from long ago,

Inspiring a phrase not spoken aloud in years.

Landing on the tongue as if it never left.

A pause in the thin place between recognition and doubt,

The moment held like a breath not ready to be released.

Time has moved things around.

The furniture of thoughts no longer sits where it used to.

Old rooms must be navigated carefully.

But it comes, unannounced but not unwelcome.

It holds a strangeness,

Like the sight of a familiar face in a crowd that has forgotten your name.

There is a story it wants to tell.

Like a scar.

Not a record of the pain,

But a celebration of the healing.

The shape hasn't changed,

But the space it returns to has.

No longer a tight fit.

Not the same edge.

Something has widened, softened,

Refused to remain as it was.

The return lingers.

Not demanding.

Relenting.

Determined to be known again.

A familiar sight,

Carrying the distance it traveled,

Along with the quiet proof

Neither of us is unchanged.