I used to think leaving
was the only way forward—
that movement meant distance,
that survival required departure.

But the body remembers differently.

It learns the weight of heat
on the back of the neck,
the language of dust
lifting at the edge of the road,
the way the sky opens—
wide, but not empty.

There are crossings
that do not announce themselves.

A shift in breath.
A loosening in the chest.
The moment you stop measuring
your life against elsewhere.

I have stood at doors before—
hands full of questions,
pockets lined with leaving.
I have believed
the future lived somewhere else,
just beyond reach,
just past the horizon.

But here—

here the ground answers back.

Not loudly.
Not all at once.
Just enough
to interrupt the old story.

To remind me
that staying is not the absence of movement,
but a different kind of crossing—
one that happens inward,
one that asks
not where you are going,
but what you are willing to become
when nothing carries you away.

 

Published May 1, 2026
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.