I thought I had outgrown you.

You keep Returning

Always coming back the way a shadow lengthens -

slowly...gradually,

but with the confidence of something

that always knew the path home.

At first, it’s only a shift in the air,

a familiar weight settling on the windowsill,

a distant memory needing to rest its feet.

I pretend not to notice.

I've practiced that.

But then it clears its throat...

softly, politely...

and there it is again,

the thing you thought you’d outgrown,

wearing the same face

but carrying new weather.

It has never needed your permission.

It never does.

It simply arrives,

bringing the scent of old rooms,

the echo of a laugh you used to be happy in,

the shape of a question, never answered.

You study it like a photograph

you don’t remember taking.

Something is off.

Yet everything is exactly the same.

You can’t decide which part unsettles you more.

Still, it sits beside you,

patient as a saint,

waiting for you to admit

that some things return

because they were never truly gone...

only wandering,

only gathering stories

to bring back to your door.

And you, older now,

open the door a little wider,

letting it in

as if this time

you might finally learn

what it came back to tell you.