Platform Terminal

(image credit here)

As published in The Chronicle A.Y.2013-2014

Train stations and delays, flights and arrivals and departures. You were always the question mark in my carefully mapped out plan, the only wrinkle in my path to tomorrow.

You were that question I can never answer.

I know the basics, like how you came into my life (it was college, everything is scary, and you were the first friend in the sea of faces and strangers and sky-high expectations), but I don't know how you made yourself so important. Nothing was ever permanent, but you made me feel that you are. Through deadlines and stress and all the unhealthy habits, you were always beside me, or else in the background but still a significant presence.

You were there. You were always there. You were the only definite spot in the map, the only landmark of my failed romantic ventures. You were the last saving point in a game, always there to urge me forward and try again.

I never realized when you turned from the saving point to the goal.

You were the princess to be saved in the tower. The final stage, however, was also you.

Despite your permanence in me, you were never one to be still. You were the dictionary definition of action. Movement became you, and life happened with your step and smile and snap of your fingertips. And despite my geeky, video-game analogy, you were never the one to wait for a savior. You were the type of princess who owned the castle and made friends with the dragons and trolls that guard it.

You never waited.

You said so yourself, until I met you. You said the last four words lightly, but I heard the weight of the words.

I was your anchor, and you were scared of that. Anchors kept ships at ports, and you only saw ports as changing points for the next adventure. But ports were also safe places, for repairs and refreshments and getting to know what it means to have stability.

I was an anchor. You were the princess in the tower.

Maybe we were waiting for each other. For the ship to set sail, for its final passenger. Maybe, just maybe, this was why we waited.

The train is slowing to a stop, the final boarding call is being sounded out. There were places we need to go. It was time we stopped meeting them alone. There were crossroads to be taken both ways, with held hands in both directions. There were paths that needed wrinkles for people to try and iron them out, questions that needed to stay unanswered until that right one comes along and the right person answers.

Coming along, then?