Sometimes you return to me in sleep,
not as a memory,
but as though nothing ever ended.
There, somewhere beyond the reach of morning,
I am still the place your heart comes home to,
and you are still the country of mine.
Perhaps there is a universe
where we chose differently,
where time did not put its hands between us,
where the years were kind,
and love was allowed to remain.
In that world,
I still know the sound of your footsteps,
you still fall asleep beside me,
and the smallest things are ours:
coffee cooling between our hands,
rain against the window,
a silence that needs no explaining.
Then I wake.
And this life returns,
the room, the distance,
all the years that learned to live without you.
But for a few impossible hours
somewhere in the dark,
the universe makes a mistake…
and gives you back to me.