Whispers from another strangers road
Scratchings in the margins of a Gideon bible
Passages imprinted on the last pages of a hotel note pad
A scribbled addition to the room service menu
A simple obsession
Communicating with unseen past travelers
In the secret places we share
The people who we would never meet
Meeting through the detritus of leavings
Someone else’s boarding pass
Used as a bookmark in a book exchanged
The fantasies in origami gifts
Hidden at the back of a drawer
A scrap of paper in the battery compartment of a TV Remote
The places that belong to a traveler
And survive the decontamination of people making minimum wage
Gifts for the very skilled
Or extremely lucky
Human connection from those that abhor it at every other turn
The places that don’t belong to locals
The stranger reading a book at the bar
There for food, alcohol, and little else
Connection without connecting
In a world that prefers home to anywhere else
What to do when home is not an option?
Not the horror of homelessness
But the despair of less than a home
So allow me this obsession
The intersection of past and present
A tap into an unseen world
The breadcrumbs of lifted vails
The secrets we hold and only tell to strangers
And maybe to ourselves
Alone in the dark
Of somewhere that’s not home.
Image by Ilja Ketschik
Word Outlet 