Brimstone Lark

These concrete walls have seen a thousand tender goodbyes.

Countless tears dampened the cracked sidewalk

Soaking forever into the absorbent grout lining between the gray tiles.

If these walls could speak, they would say,

‘I remember you! You cried in the TSA line before buying an iced shaken espresso at Starbucks!’

‘You hid behind those strangers on the escalator to surprise your family, whose hands wrung with the anticipation of reunion.

My memories are pasted next to Koa framed photos of an even older Hawaii, paused in time.

I drop you off at 6 am and my heart breaks on the freeway onramp

A man cries in a loss unfamiliar to me now that he has signal

My sister sits on her suitcase before leaving for the first time ever

I’m not allowed to remember the first time I said goodbye to my brother, but I’m sure these walls remember for me.

Now as I stroll beyond the cheap leather chairs that cradled me as a child

I think about fish at 11:00 am in the Airport.

Nothing says “I have been SO excited to see you” like a bowl of poke, patiently waiting for me, rumbling in shotgun on it’s way to me.

Nothing says “I am so sad to see you leave” like the bento box tucked away in my bag.

This place is the dog ear in the top right corner of my life

And the large familiar stone I pass between ‘here’ and ‘there’.

These walls stand tall in their faith that the moments they witnessed will take place for us again in some distant date in new forms.