Footsteps

I’ll follow in my haunted footsteps,
if only for a few days,
back to the place that shaped me
and unmade me in the same breath.

Returning home
doesn’t feel like returning—
just revisiting something
that no longer knows my name.

There’s a conflict waiting there,
sitting just off the road,
in the space between
stopping
and driving past.

I don’t know how to fight it.
I don’t know if I’m supposed to.

The thought of not stopping
feels like abandonment—
but stopping
feels like reopening something
that never really closed.

And then there’s your house.

I imagine the drive,
how it will come into view
too quickly,
like memory does—
a blur,
a melting of years
I can’t neatly put back together.

I wonder if anything would feel familiar,
or if it would all feel like standing
outside of my own life.

Here I am,
still carrying something
that never had a place to land.

Here I am,
passing by or pulling in—
I don’t know which yet—

but either way,
I’m still the one
who was not chosen.

Still the one
standing in the quiet aftermath,
trying to understand
how something that felt like everything
could leave me feeling
like nothing at all.

Visiting my hometown this upcoming weekend for a funeral of a former colleague. I’m not decided if I should visit my parents or not. Their home is only a few miles off the interstate. :/