2. Wanderers

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Wanderers travel to touch.
Warmth, tenderness, affection.
Gestures of welcome.
The recognition of one’s existence.
Love.

 

Proof that a space was once left,
and that one can return to claim it
in someone’s home,
in someone’s heart.

 

It is an antidote to the fear of not existing,
to the thought that one’s disappearance
would pass unnoticed.

Evidence that touch does not meet indifference,
that life is not moving through you
as though you were transparent.

 

Touch leaves a trace.
It meets something in the world
that does not turn away.

 

From the imprint left
however light, however brief,
warmth is reflected back.

 

That is why people travel.
That is why they keep wandering.

 

In the end, everything is done for love.

 

Unnamed.
Rarely spoken.
A quiet hope persists:
 

that at the end of the journey
we are loved,
in some way.

 

Not always as imagined.
Not always by whom we expected.