my fellow traveler

We met in the spring,
warm days unfolding somewhere far from home,
a hostel full of people on the edge of change,
not yet knowing
this moment would stay.

You were beginning something.
I was passing through.
Still, we recognized each other,
as if the map already knew
our paths would cross.

We walked unfamiliar streets like they were ours,
laughed like something unnamed was forming,
inside jokes born too fast,
moments turning into memory
without effort.

Then life did what it does.
Love appeared. Paths bent.
Goodbyes arrived quietly.
Yet something remained.

A message. A plan.
A sentence half meant, half dreamed.
Sometimes the universe answers.
Sometimes it simply listens.

Somewhere between shared meals and late talks
we stopped being travelers
and became something steadier,
witnesses to each other’s becoming.

You are the one I trust with my mess,
my joy, my ordinary tears.
The one I laugh with, lean on,
build something real with,
even if only for a while.

And when places, walls, and lives change,
this doesn’t.
The place you live in me
is not temporary.

My fellow traveler,
some journeys never end.

-Nina