Between Tenses

Sometimes I walk past the station 
just to watch departures. 
I imagine you somewhere coastal, 
hair salted, voice roughened by distance. 
I’ve kept your mug— 
it stains the same way mine does. 

Do you still think of the bridge, 
the one we never crossed? 

Yes. Every night. 
It hums behind the noise of trains 
and new conversations. 
The bridge was shorter than I feared— 
but what a long fall, afterwards. 
I’ve learned to pack lightly, 
to sleep without roots. 
Sometimes, mid-laughter, 
I hear the echo of your quiet life 
and envy its stillness. 

The sea is not freedom, 
only motion that never decides. 

If we met again, 
we would recognise the same ache 
expressed in different tenses— 
you, the present; me, the perpetual leaving. 
Two mirrors angled to infinity, 
each reflecting what the other 
almost became.