WHAT THEY DONT TELL YOU ABOUT COMING HOME

They don't tell you that coming back,
hurts more than the blisters ever did. 
That silence hits different when it's not wrapped in muds and stars.

I finished the trail, 
and everyone congratulates - 
But no one hears the echo in my chest, 
where the wind used to live.

I try to plug back in - 

to friends, to dinner plans, to the 9-to-5 grind, 

but nothing quite fits.

My body is here,

but my soul is still somewhere between mile marker and that ridge, 

where i first realized i was alive.

They asked, "How was it, was it fun?"

I smile and nod, 

but how do i speak of sky and mountains?

Of rain that cleanses more than skin?

Of finding strength so deep within?

I miss the dirt under my nails.

The way my skin smelled like the sky.

The way my thoughts got quite - 

not because they disappeared, 

but because nature listened without needing to reply.

I left the trail with dirt on my skin, 

and your name still stuck between my lungs.

A different kind of unfinished.

A different kind of lost.

Neither of you said goodbye.

Not the mountain,

Not you.

Just the cold fade-out of things,

that were never built to last -

but still, somehow, mattered.

I'm back in the cities, but i am not.

I'm still out there, walking, searching,

missing a version of myself,

who only existed,

when the whole world fit in my backpack.