We Keep On Going Anyway

I’ve been walking this path longer than I meant to.

The trees along the side don’t talk anymore, and neither do the birds sing,

and the hills blur together as one

far and wide

like excuses in someone else’s mouth.

Funny how distance never explains itself.

You look back and it seems like forever or minute,

and the sharp things start to disappear:

the cliffs, the fear, the hopes,

even that voice you loved now just slips between reality and illusion.

We think about that love sometimes.

“That love”—you know the one.

Who first brought butterflies,

then left moths.

That was months ago,

or years,

or last week.

Depends who’s asking.

Just look how the bruises show,

and you wonder how you let them sink their fangs into you.

They left like a season that decided to skip town,

a breeze blown stronger than the wind

when it was convenient.

No letter,

no text message,

just one day, out of the blue,

they decide today was the day

my name didn’t mean warmth anymore,

and the time shared was meaningless

left you climbing up the walls to escape the sinking feelings that you try to hide.

I think it was then

I started wandering a lonely road.

The road less traveled—or was it just the only one left?

That’s where I met a guy

pushing a shopping cart

held together by plastic ties and prayer.

He told me he stopped counting miles

once the ground stopped being polite.

He said the hard part

wasn’t the walking.

It was knowing

nobody waits at the end.

We shared a smoke

and didn’t say anything profound.

But I remember the silence in that moment.

I think that mattered more than the smoke to both of us.

Some days

my hands smell like metal and sweaty palms.

Other days

I forget what I used to want from life.

I write,

I sleep,

I try not to watch the news.

Sometimes,

I look at life like it owes me an apology.

But it doesn’t.

Not me.

Not you.

It is what it is.

There’s a joke in all this,

I think

how nothing stays,

but the wounds still pile up.

How sorrow doesn’t have a face,

but somehow still wears your hoodie

and that Anon mask,

and it doesn’t stop kicking your ass.

People say

it gets better.

Does it? Really!?

Are they sure?

Or is that just cold comfort?

And maybe it does.

But better isn’t always different.

Sometimes

it’s just quieter

the same shit,

just another day.

And you keep going.

Because you do.

Because you have to.

Because the road

doesn’t care what you’ve been through,

who you are,

or who you lost,

or what you think you know.

It only knows forward.

And so forward we must walk

until one day,

there’s no more path,

and the journey quietly ends.

It’s then you realize

paradise was always in your soul.

We’re all just lost

dragging bruises through the labyrinth.

But still 

We keep on going anyway.