The Arrival at a Departure That Never Was

I am waiting for a train that has already left, and yet it is only now arriving. This station exists in the precise moment between remembering someone and forgetting them entirely.
He told me he would meet me here wearing nothing but his promise—a garment so heavy I can barely breathe beneath its invisible weight. To be warm in this city’s sterile concrete embrace, one must first become cold enough to feel every draft of loneliness as a caress.
I wear my swimsuit not for the sea, which lies three hundred miles away, but because we once agreed that our love was an ocean—vast, drowning, and entirely imaginary. I am dressed for a dive into memories that haven't happened yet.
The ticket in my hand is blank; it grants passage to everywhere except where I currently stand. The paradox is simple: the more certain I am of his return, the more impossible it becomes for him to have ever left. He arrives at 5:03 PM precisely because he missed me three years ago.
As a single drop of sweat slides down my collarbone—a warm contradiction in this cool shade—I realize that our romance is not a journey from A to B, but an infinite loop where every hello contains its own goodbye. I smile into the distance, knowing that by waiting here forever, I have already arrived.

Editor: Paradox