The airport sorrow

We can never get used to airports—the sheer weight of distance and the torrent of emotions they bring. Who ever said that when we hold each other tightly, a hundred times, a thousand times at the moment of goodbye, the warmth of our embrace would linger, keeping us close for a hundred or a thousand days until we meet again? Who ever claimed that if we trace the steps of travelers to the other side of those cold, unforgiving airport gates, or to the ends of winding streets and lonely roads, and then pour out a jar of tears in their wake, they’d somehow return sooner?

But I know this—every time we choke on our tears during those farewells, that heavy, leaden sorrow inside our chest rises once more, like molten lava from a restless volcano, burning hotter and sinking deeper into our hearts, leaving scars we silently carry.

Airports, though, are like heartless, rough-hewn monsters, blind to these surges of love, affection, regret, and longing. They only smile at the polished pilots and flight attendants, and at the giant planes as they come and go. But if only longing had a color—if it could manifest as a shade of melancholy blue—those blue waves would flood the soulless airport halls, swirling among the people like an endless tide. And in the midst of those desperate, tight embraces, the blue would deepen into a rich cobalt, before fading beyond the gates and dissolving into the infinite blue of the sky above.

No, we’ll never get used to airports. I wish they were just places for landing, not for taking off. But that sad, aching blue, it lingers—and somewhere deep in my embrace, it hurts, the same place that aches every time with each arrival and each departure