07/18/2026
Between Sehnsucht and Fernweh
A Poem by A.S.
There are two words the English language never quite learned to hold.
Sehnsucht—
the ache for a home the soul remembers
but the feet have never found.
Fernweh—
the longing for distant horizons,
for roads that whisper, keep going,
because somewhere beyond the next mountain
you might finally breathe without asking permission.
I have lived between them.
For years, I mistook cages for cathedrals,
confusing devotion with disappearing,
believing that love required the quiet surrender
of my own voice.
I became fluent in shrinking—
in measuring every word,
in folding my dreams into smaller shapes
so they would fit inside someone else’s hands.
But hearts are not meant to be folded forever.
Now I stand where every ending becomes a shoreline.
Behind me, footprints the tide has already begun to erase.
Before me, an ocean with no map,
only stars.
I grieve not only the people I have lost,
but the woman who kept abandoning herself
to keep the peace.
She deserves mourning, too.
Yet beneath the sorrow,
something ancient is waking.
Perhaps Sehnsucht was never a longing for another person.
Perhaps it was always a longing for myself—
for the woman I might have become
had fear never mistaken itself for love.
And perhaps Fernweh is not a desire to run away.
Perhaps it is the quiet courage
to walk toward the life
that has been calling my name all along.
So I will follow it.
One trembling step.
One uncertain sunrise.
One deep breath that belongs only to me.
If home is not a place,
but the moment my spirit no longer apologizes for existing,
then I am already on the journey.
And maybe that is enough for today.
Between Sehnsucht and Fernweh,
I am no longer searching for someone to rescue me.
I am learning the oldest pilgrimage of all—
the long, beautiful road
back to myself. ❤️
