Texas is frozen.

Atlanta is swollen.

This is not the vibe I ordered.

I made it a thousand miles closer,
  and somehow feel even further away.

Outside, the air bites
    the kind of cold that feels
    personal,
    vindictive,

    like I must have wronged winter in a past life.

Inside, time drags.
       the minutes,
       the hours,

       all moving at the speed— of bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, she’s moving slow,
    sinuses staging a mutiny,
    body protesting something

    she can’t quite put her finger on.

I pace through Fort Worth,
   wondering if this place
     was always this gray?

Or is Texas itself in solidarity
     with this…
               waiting game?

It’s like we’re both…
     stuck in a holding pattern—
            circling the runway,

     waiting for clearance,
     waiting for *go*.

Waiting for a sign that the Universe has stopped playing _defense_

But we both know—
    even in this cold,
    even in the waiting—

    we’re still moving.

Forty-Eight hours.

Less, even.

The sky can stall,
    the air can freeze,

    the universe can throw one last roadblock—

But short of re-routing my entire existence…

I'm still landing *exactly* where I'm supposed to be.