Praveen Kumar 
I check the time zones on my phone again, calculating the hours between us, imagining you moving through our home, the space emptier without me;
your morning coffee steams by the table, the newspaper spread across our sofa, your fingers tracing headlines i cannot see, your sigh carrying across continents;
i wander through foreign streets at dusk, passing couples with intertwined hands, stopping at shop windows to find gifts, each one a promise of my return;
the video call connects with a soft chime, your smile breaking across the screen, our words falling over each other, time suspended in digital embrace;
sleep finds me with your photo on the phone, dreaming of moonlight reflected in your eyes, counting the days on the calendar, distance measured in heartbeats until home;
