Flight

We’re off now, I guess, with your leaving here,
since I’m pretty sure that ends whatever this was.
O‘ahu is too small a space, confining you.
College in California gave you the taste of what could be.
You say you wish now you’d never come back,
that you’d pursued opportunities over there to begin with.
This hurts only me, it seems, since we met after you returned.
There had been so many possibilities there, you say, and here none.
You flew back reluctantly anyway, and sure enough found
you’d never be able to afford a home or a family in this place.
I’m so glad I met you, but sadly I’m a Hawai‘i boy,
born and bred to live in this small space,
my definition of affordable living adapting.
I’ve accepted that I’ll have less here costing more.
But I won’t have you, and that’s expensive.
You say we’ll keep in touch; I smile and nod.
I watch your plane taxi and lift off,
your quick ascent to the moon and stars and tomorrow.
I spread my wings, flutter my feathers, then nestle in for the night.
You fly east fast, winging your way to a quickly rising sun.