In the beginning, we were endless horizons.
I fell for the wild, unmapped terrain of you—
you who walked without borders,
who looked at the sky and saw no ceilings,
who handed me a key to a room with no walls.
With you, I felt infinite.
We were weightless, running on open ground,
spilling over the edges of everything we touched.
Then the key turned in a real lock.
You moved into my flat,
and without meaning to,
I began tracing lines on the floorboards.
I built quiet fences around our days,
pruning your edges to fit between my four walls,
shrinking myself down to fit inside with you.
We traded the open sky for a closed door,
and I watched the vastness fade into routine. I
don’t want to guard these boundaries anymore.
I don’t want to be the architect of our limits.
I want the air back,
the raw, untethered joy of who we were
when we didn’t ask permission to be free.
© 2026 Thomas Köppen. All Rights Reserved