Grounded by Invisible Footprints

I followed the same path this morning.

Same carved, concrete path

start to finish, I lost about

a third of the sand that cascaded

through my hourglass.

I followed the trail of trees.

Their deciduous nature was

rushing the landscape in

a blaze of reds, yellows, and

oranges against the grey

skies that loomed above. A

crevice formed over time

from my footsteps

in the already fractured footpath.

I followed my way deeper into

a world poisonous to me. This

walk felt like an inoculation

of mercury that slowly sickened my soul.

It wasn’t bad, just bad for me.

I stepped into the center of the

Circle of Stones and wanted

to drop right in place. Gravity

weighed down on my sensitive nerves.

My muscles screamed, “Don’t go!”

as they atrophied in this skin.

My head said, “Keep walking,

you need to do this, it’s life.”

Still, I wanted to buckle in

the middle of the maroon circle.

I needed the safety of centuries

of invisible footprints whose destination

I will never know.