Footsteps

I walk in the footsteps of an old self – mine – retracing that strange and painful journey. I pause at certain places … linger … look long. I don’t plan to make this journey again. 

It’s a pilgrimage. 

If, when I began, I thought it merely a revisiting, a ‘trip down memory lane’ (how blithe that sounds!) – by now I intend completion. 

I have been reluctant to let you go. I wanted to tell our story. The saddest story, yes, but also beautiful. I can’t. It sounds just like hundreds of others, when told. I perceive it’s not meant to be revealed – not in its every detail. It was ours alone to live, to know. That was enough reason for it to be! I only want to tell it now to preserve it, but that’s a false and foolish goal. 

We lived, we met, we loved, you died. I walk again, deliberately, in the footsteps of my journey with you, where our paths intersected, entangled…. 

I reach

that final crossroad 

holding

one last gaze –

your blue eyes