When I get through security
I start to wander, just to see

where I end up. I grab
my hand with the other

lead myself slowly down the halls,
past the rows of seats and children running

away from their parents,
past the restaurants and the signs

and the kiosks and the numbers.
1 to 38. 38 to 1.

I don’t mean to find anything
but I do: Here is the table

outside the Potbelly’s
where my parents and I talked

about which college tours I liked best.
Here is the bookstore where I purchased

a Donna Tartt book to read
over summer break. Here is the gate

where I watched with adolescent eyes
as the woman’s orange therapy cat curled up under her legs.

I have lived my life countless times;
endings producing beginnings

producing endings. Small
existences, little deaths. But here,

where everything is holding its breath, where
fluorescent light glimmers off the water bottles

where everyone is beautiful,
simply because everyone

is ten times more beautiful
when you know nothing about them—

Here, I am teetering on the verge
of a new melody. Here,

I am standing between two mirrors, watching
versions of me fade into jade glass,

just out of reach. My old shadows
staining the floors. My footprints buried

under countless others.
I’m at the edge of the terminal now,

feeling the rush of ghosts
as they materialize into passersby

with jobs, families, lives. I study their faces,
bathe in the passing winds,

take a deep breath and let it go.
Then I turn and walk away,

letting whatever time I have left
envelop me, before I move on

into that thrumming rush of life.