The Traveler

As I turn to look back, my eyes see the rough roads traveled I know how long and dark their path. Along their edges were flickering fires, kept burning by those who stayed, craving warmth and comfort over the unknown. It's the unknown where I turned my collar up, to still the cold winds, as each step became a shuffle into the night. There was no light or comfort where I traveled, only cold eyes and darkness Silent..but for the internal workings of rusted souls, creeping around confines of their human shells, pacing back and forth in the prisons of their own making. I may never return, no one has. That I may become a ghostly shadow, moving in silence along unguarded meadows, where the dead lay. An uncertain light of wishful thinking, passing through the portal of time. Seeking not to end up a frozen piece of cloth, picked at by the beaks of crows. There are times I wished I had stayed. No one cared I had left, no one ever does. They tend to their warm fires in quiet fashion, giving those of us who move on nothing, but a quiet whispered hush of goodbye. Years of cold and grey mornings are tearing away the night. Off in the distance I see crows. I'm needing to find payment for a choice made, as I stare out over the edge of tomorrow, where nothing lives..but hope 4/20/17