five minutes of an almost home

There are three things I know: queer bars see more hope than graffiti on highschool walls, hospitals see more prayers than church-bell calls, and airports see truer kisses than wedding halls.
Three things I know to be truer than words, and I know them to be secrets meant to be shared. As I fly back home - is it really home, now that I know what I'm missing? - I wonder what you've seen. What secrets do you hold within those carpeted floors, tucked between corners and security and one last shopping mall? What truths do you take into your core and never let go? What memories did you let us back into every wire and every conveyor belt, wrapped up tight to keep us safe and our truths even safer?
What have you seen, what do you know, and what's the price to learn what you'll never share with me? You have my thoughts and so do I, ah, love letter to the constant presence you and I both know you'll become. This isn't the last time I will ever walk away from you with my heart still beating.
What would you change, if this world could listen? What thoughts would you have to spill to the world like our so many tears, if not a single secret drops from gates like lips? You're not home and you never will be, and you know we'll never truly love you as you are, and yet. And yet. You are the almost-home, you are the one I write this love letter to, right now, as I still taste that one true kiss on my lips and it tastes like nothing but cloud-dust and a dream.
And yet I would delay my arrival to you by one more moment, one more hour, if I could have one more kiss by the twin I left you for.
I didn't leave my secrets with you. I left my hope but not my prayer, and you never saw the kiss I thought you might one day witness. You're only the stars on the ground that measure my way to the almost-home. I didn't leave my secrets with you, not this time, never this time, and it'll never be with you that I leave all but one truth in the world. That honour goes to all your twins, every layover, every destination, and never, never you my almost-home where I finally break into a run after so long, because if I look back, I will never keep going.
You don't know my sorrow and you don't know my joy. But there are four things I know: queer bars see more hope than graffiti on highschool walls, hospitals see more prayers than church-bell calls, airports see truer kisses than wedding halls, and the last time I walk to you alone will be the day you will ring my wedding bells.