Chance Encounter

Nowhere felt like home anymore,
and for awhile,
that felt right,
different,
enchanting even,
like there was more of my life ahead of me than behind me,
as I had said before,

but not wanting to go home wasn't because I didn't have one,
it was because I didn't want it anymore,

I didn't like what it said about me,
about what it didn't say about who I had become,

space was appealing in a way it had never been,
and not because I believed in extinction here,
though I do,
and not because it is exotic,
though it is,
and not because I'm chronically dissatisfied,
though I am,

but because I imagined silence,
I imagined it healing me a bit,
being far from here,
from things and derivatives I was ashamed of,

I imagined a lot,
and my fingers felt itchy,
and my heart itched,
and my head,
my legs,
all of it,

for something there,
beyond the Fata Morgana,
beyond all of that,
where no one knew the disappointment I had become