The Road

I travelled back down the road on which we spent hours together, incalculable time twisting our fates like the vine covered walls we’d pass. I travelled back down the road with signs pointed toward your home one way, and mine the other. Straight lines and green lights sailing us through crossings. No sunburnt ambers yet. No midway checkpoints. I've travelled back down that road, only years later now. The wheat still grows in the countryside, the laybys still house dust. That carpark where I solved the mystery of the flashing dashboard was empty again. I travelled back down that road, driving into a past I loved as the present, never thinking it a counterfeit future. A fork in the road was drawn on your map only. I travel back now, down this road, to a friend who stayed as you left, who consoled as you hid. Who helped reroute a direction abandoned, for a different course unplanned. I will travel along this road to the friend who made all those journeys worth it.