***

Lea and Dea lived in the overlap—
music stands and muddy cleats,
books cracked open on the counter,
songs they hummed wrong on purpose
just to hear each other laugh.

They were good at trying.
Good at the stumble before the goal,
the measure played twice to get it once,
the kind of effort that didn’t take itself
too seriously.

Then winter scattered them like seeds.

Dea walked Oman’s old quarters,
sun cutting shadows sharp as memory,
her fingers tracing walls that had seen
a thousand other wanderers.
She got lost the way you do
when you’re exactly where you want to be.

Lea carved her name in Swiss snow—
not with letters, just with speed,
the mountainside a willing audience
to her particular way of falling upward.

They didn’t write essays.
They sent breadcrumbs:
look at this
remember when
you have to see this.

Small things. Bright things.
Enough to know
that even far apart,
the same laugh still arrived first.