Between Departures





Between Departures


There are words
we would never tell the ones we love—
too heavy, too tangled,
too afraid of what their eyes might say.
Yet we offer them freely
to someone sitting beside us
on a train we’ll never board again.

A face across the aisle,
a fellow traveller on a flight,
a woman in a queue—
their silence opens like a window,
their attention soft,
unburdened by history.
They do not know our stories,
and in that unknowing
lies a strange mercy.

We speak, because they do not matter—
and yet, for that brief hour,
they matter more than anyone.
They hold our truth without reaction,
their gaze neither mends nor breaks,
it simply is.
And so the words flow—
as though sharing is less about unburdening,
and more about being heard.

The stranger nods,
smiles perhaps,
or shares a memory like a leaf in passing—
and suddenly we are both lighter,
as though the act of being heard
is enough to make us human again.

The comfort of strangers
is not that they listen better,
but that they listen without wanting to fix.
They are a mirror without memory,
a river that carries our reflection
without keeping it.

When the flight lands,
the queue moves,
the train reaches its last stop,
we part with a smile—
no promises, no numbers,
no trace of what was shared.
Only the quiet knowing
that for a moment,
we were seen without being known,
heard without being judged.

And perhaps that is what freedom feels like—
not the absence of people,
but the presence of one
who expects nothing of you.

The world needs such strangers—
temporary sanctuaries
where truth can rest,
and the soul can speak
without rehearsal.

For sometimes,
it takes the unknown
to remind us
who we really are.

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