Travel is a Rather Dangerous Thing

Sometimes there is so much to love

that it hurts.

Like a hole, waiting to be emptied as it's being filled.

That preemptive pain; anticipation of loss.

But those words are too big to quite describe this --

It's simple the way a tsunami is,

a wildfire,

a burial.

Sometimes there is too much to love

or maybe I've got too much love inside me.

For I love that kind eyed man we sat next to on the plane.

I love that little girl -- Ronnie, her backpack said -- who waddled around the airport

That teenager from the band I sat with on another flight -- Rylee, I think it was.

The girl who cried when her ears popped, no matter how much her dads tried to comfort her.

I love the little girl with her dark hair in frizzy pigtails who steadied the balance beam as I attempted to cross.

I love that person -- the one with the long, bright pink hair, looking confidently lost in the middle of the airport -- whose face I couldn't tear my eyes from, and once I finally did and looked back up, they were gone.

I love the bearded father, cooing over his baby.

And the couple with their own infant, who I held the door for.

The blonde girl whose older brother -- Conner, she called him -- kept walking away as she yelled at him to wait for their parents.

The other girl who sat across from me on yet another flight, playing gleefully with an Elsa doll.

I love all these people, yet they can never know this.

I will never see these strangers again, and if I do, I will not know.

I suppose travel is a rather dangerous thing --

All these lives, cross if but for an instant,

an instantaneous intersection of fates,

fatally diverged to a new path, an unknown meeting ended.

With one step,

one turn of the head,

one ignorant glance,

who knows what you

are losing.

People often think I'm sad,

They ask why,

And I don't know how to tell them

That I am just so happy --

so dreadfully happy because of everyone and everything --

That I simply don't know what to do with it.

But I'm too scared

to let it go.

(Jan. 2024)