Lyric

Surname first

Block letters only

The pen skips twice

On the wet blue line

Flight number blurred

By my thumbprint

A corner curls

Against my thigh

The hall keeps breathing through the vents

Cold air pressed into the heat

My shirt still holds the taxi smell

Diesel, rain, and sleepless streets

A child drags wheels across the floor

Like thunder made small and polite

I count the windows past the gate

To keep my hands from feeling light

Departure Card in a Damp Pocket

Soft paper against my skin

I am leaving with nothing dramatic

Just a room I never lived in

One more stamp, one more question

One more line I almost know

Some places do not keep you

But they change the way you go

Belt

Phone

Keys

Loose coin

Passport

Receipt

A name

Half-joined

The officer lifts his tired eyes

Then lowers them back to the page

My mouth remembers how to answer

Before my heart can choose a place

Behind me, someone unwraps a sweet

The plastic cracks like tiny rain

I think about the guesthouse mirror

Still fogged with someone else’s name

Leaving is not always a door

Sometimes it is paper losing shape

A damp square hidden near the hip

A proof too soft to keep

I thought the end would feel like motion

A runway, a bright command

But it feels like warm ink drying

On the side of my hand

When they call the row before mine

I stand slower than I planned

The card is bent, the page is marked

The country slips from my hands

Not gone clean

Not carried whole

Just changed enough

To not return the same