Loneliness is a promise the heart made and no one answered.

It settles quietly, waiting for a voice to meet it in the spaces between old conversations, in the wind crossing a cold, gray field

The horizon presses flat against the earth,

wide enough to make a person disappear.
Seasons pass without asking, carrying off small pieces of what love once was.
Still, morning arrives.

Light spills over the prairie, and the past rises only to loosen its grip, to leave behind something like forgiveness.

Beyond the low clouds, someone keeps a place open.

A gate unlatched.

Air warming, almost unnoticed.

And slowly, loneliness softens, not gone, but held in the quiet certainty of another heart remembering you.