we are miles away now, and each eating separately. me, here, in the red light of a lonely kitchen, and them all over there, just as lonely. this is what belonging means i think. or some kind of obligation - the impulse that brings me back here, that flings me from a catapult through the rough and tumbling sky, over oceans and the curvature of land to some other little corner. outside the park is still the thing it was. there is a stack of bills on the bench. things are scattered still, where i left them and i wonder what the neighbours thought, when i one day just wasn't here. nor the next, or the next. i think of the way things continue to crumble and the way i am away from them now. the way i wish i wasn't and the way it is so good to be back here. it is strange the way things change, the way they vanish. it is strange the way hearts are divided and fulfilled. the way voices carry over such long distances to become just a whisper, just a breath, breathed in an ear and held there, for an instant. and i wonder what it feels like, to know that, in your heart. i wonder what it means to have lived a life. i wonder if it is precious. because it seems to be. to me, it seems to be.