Christen Foster Poet Free verse

Where the path leads

Go where the path leads

They told me the path was straight.
They drew it out on paper,
color-coded, laminated,
handed it to me at seventeen
like a map to somewhere worth becoming.
Follow this.
Don’t wander.

Where does the path lead?
It leads through the kitchen at 2am
where you are crying about something
you don’t have a word for yet —
and then you find the word,
and then you cry differently.
Better. Like a door opening.
It leads through the year
you were so sure you had it figured out

in the only language they knew —
which was sometimes enough
and sometimes wasn’t,
and you had to learn
to hold both of those truths
in the same hand

Past the version of you
who stayed too long.
Past the version who left too soon.
Past the you that never happened,
still standing at a crossroads somewhere,
watching you go,
wishing you well.

I used to think the path
was something underneath your feet.
Now I think it’s something
you breathe out —
every exhale a step,

So walk like you mean it.
Walk like the ground trusts you.
Walk like the trees up ahead
have been leaning toward you
for years,
waiting,
the way old things wait —
patient,
rooted,
certain

Where does the path lead?
Here.
Always, stubbornly, beautifully —
here.????????????????

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