The Platform Where You Almost Arrive

The platform breathes in cool, metallic air while my cardigan holds the last warmth of the day, a lavender cloud I refuse to let go. I stand where the yellow line dissolves into nothing, that soft boundary between the tiled floor and the dark throat of the tunnel, and I wait for no train at all—only for the blur of your silhouette to appear on the other side of the glass. The city lights smear behind me into bokeh, red and gold, like words half-spoken in a language I almost remember. My phone glows warm in my palm, a small hearth; I have not read its screen in twenty minutes, because reading would make it real, and I am keeping you as possibility instead.
They say healing is something that happens inside the chest, but tonight I learn it lives at the edges—the gap between my white top and the open knit, the space where your hand could land. The wind off the tracks tugs at my short hair like a question I have not finished answering. When you finally come out of the blur, do not speak; just let your warmth press against the cold of me, and let us stay here on this unfinished platform where no destination is required and everything, for one suspended moment, is allowed to remain beautifully incomplete.

Editor: The Unfinished