The long road.
We run,
on a treadmill that refuses to stop,
without reason it goes.
It moves ever faster beneath me, then uphill too, sometimes to my surprise it switches it up, if only for a moment or two,
setting a new soft steady pace to greet me, allowing time to take it slow and wonder if I can pick my head up for a few.
Even with those moments we know we can’t keep up, but at the same time are convinced, certain even,
“I’ll be different.”
“I can keep going, I’ll make it to the end, the end where it all waits, the end where I get off.”
So press on!
Time passes.
Bumps sprout from the road,
jerks of the wheel persist.
Time passes and we grow.
Grow to love or hate the track beneath our feet.
Velvet carpet hugging so elegantly?
Black boiling asphalt burning away my being?
Heel to heel we march to its beat, and dream of our own song to sing.
Time passes.
On and on it goes, we continue without thinking,
until ones legs ache, and even joints threaten to buckle or break.
On and on it peels away beneath feet.
The roads is narrowing now, pushing back against time itself.
For the first time I heave to stay on course, a landing strip that once told me I was almost home free.
Each breathe a curse, at odds with life’s final embrace, it continues,
that endless road.
It shows me now, something I knew long ago.
I’m to be left behind, behind where the birds refuse to sing, where its dark and cold, nothing sprouts here it’s void of anything new or green.
Are we expected to jump for joy as we fall into the web, the finish line,
and when I’m stuck will I yearn to cry out at life’s little game,
or go out with dignity as I rot and fade away.
How I (or you) choose to react I do not know, darkness closed in before I ever got close,
but I recall one thing I did see.
While I fell, the road that had once been set before, me continued on.
Over hills, through mountain passes, past the ocean itself it went, on and on, never needing you….. never needing me.
