From the back row on an unexpected flight home, I wrote about the moment you realize a love you fought for isn’t coming with you. It traces that loss into grace: returning to and choosing yourself.
Least in Return
The chatter of weekend plans
Every seat filled with hope for a soft landing,
for home,
for hands already reaching for them.
And I’m standing here
with no hunger to be witnessed
misread if necessary.
Funny, isn’t it,
how you can give what feels like everything
and still end up
with the least in return.
Now there is so much time
to think about the inevitable—
the inevitable that felt impossible
until it wasn’t.
Until it is.
Because all I was ever searching for was:
joy,
familiarity,
hope for you and me,
a familiar place to rest.
And all I got was
an impossible standard,
a door that kept moving farther away,
and this strange, bruised gift
of relearning
how to love myself again.
KATHRYN SHEA DUNCAN 