Elastic Distances

Departure begins with luggage limits.
A scale decides how much of one life may pass into another.

The house is taking in your absence, like damp.
The dogs make rounds, as if another door might open onto you.
Silence expands with the patience of an understudy.

Freiburg promises efficiency; Deutsche Bahn will prove otherwise.
Trams arrive on time, unnervingly obedient.
Bicycles annex every junction and draft their own constitution.
Surrender is performed politely.

Life will not arrive whole, but in scraps: a receipt, a bread roll, a corner passed too often to ignore.
Belonging seeps in like ivy – patient, persistent, indifferent to your consent.

Heavy days will come: bureaucracy in triplicate, sulking experiments, hours folding on themselves.

Remember that home has not vanished.
It waits.
The key still fits.

Go on.
Things have a way of stumbling into place.