After college we scattered like birds
lifting from the same branch—
each carried by winds of work,
marriage, ambition.
At first we circled back
for brief landings: reunions filled
with remembered laughter,
the easy warmth of familiarity.
But slowly, inevitably,
the sky between us widened.
Then, at twenty-seven,
my life was struck by a sudden storm—
a single, violent moment
that bent my body
and rearranged my future.
Time froze inside me;
I remained the young man
just stepping out of the gates of college,
still holding maps of dreams
not yet unfolded.
But my body marched on without me,
greying like winter branches
before their season.
I became a house with shuttered windows,
watching the world pass
without knocking.
My friends moved on—
weaving families, building nests,
balancing children on tired arms,
shouldering the weight
of ordinary responsibilities.
Their days grew too full
to hold a friend whose life
had fallen out of rhythm
with their own.
One afternoon in the hospital’s pale corridor,
I saw my best friend—
or rather, his silhouette,
familiar as an old song.
He walked past me without a glance,
as if I had turned transparent.
When I spoke his name,
he turned, startled,
his eyes flickering
between the man he remembered
and the man before him.
The wheelchair stood between us
like an unspoken question.
He spoke, but his gaze
floated toward the ceiling,
toward the floor,
anywhere but my eyes.
He told me of his children,
his long hours at work,
his busy, bustling life—
the life I was no longer part of.
Then, claiming some urgent errand,
he fled, carrying with him
a discomfort he couldn’t name.
Others did the same.
Faces from my youth
approached like shadows,
hesitated, then dissolved
into the crowd.
To them I had become
the odd note in a familiar melody,
the one you skip
because it doesn’t fit the tune.
People do not know
how to speak to those
whose lives have changed shape.
We do not ask for sympathy—
the heavy cloak that smothers
without warming.
We ask for empathy—
the gentle hand that says,
I see you. I’m not afraid.
Speak to us as you once did,
before the fault-lines opened.
Do not step back;
step closer.
Now I live with my brother’s family,
where laughter softens the walls,
where silence feels safe.
Books are my companions,
music my shifting weather,
movies my borrowed journeys.
Writing steadies the tremors
of unspoken thoughts.
Through my computer screen
the world arrives—
a window of light
in a room without doors.
I am content, held
by the ones who stayed.
Yet sometimes,
in the hush between turning pages,
I trace the outline
of the life that might have been—
the one lost
in a single, irreversible moment.
