There Are No Wrong Turns, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

No Wrong Turns

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

There are no wrong turns.

Each and every time you have been lost

You have eventually found your way out;

It is the same with journeying inside.

Walls appear when moments before

There were none,

Dead ends rise up like tombstones when you

Least expect them to,

Passageways narrow suddenly, and fall off

Into deep ravines,

But here you are, reading this—and this

Is hope on a string of words;

Take them or leave them, the fact remains

You are reading them, hearing them

Now

Here

Now

Safe

Now

Without guardrails

And you are still not falling.

I get it, don’t worry.  I am lost

Much of the time myself, I hardly ever know

Where the road is going—if it indeed goes anywhere.

Somedays I look down the road

And only mist, or mist-infused darkness loom;

Somedays the road ahead looks more like a movie screen

Of the past than a road, and somedays,

I even begin walking or exploring the edges

Only to pull myself upright at the slightest sound

And go back to where I was, and sometimes,

Even that place—the back where I was place—

Is gone; and sometimes, and, oh, I feel terrible

For saying this—but sometimes the road

Is so utterly lonely, even though it is inhabited

By many fine souls—living, dead, in between—

And there are fireflies, and stars, rivers, and buttercups,

And there is singing and crickets, and always, the moon;

Let’s face it though—the road can be hard,

And gravel gets in your shoes,

And the desire arises more often than you would like to admit

To simply roll up into a ball and dissolve into even more nothing

Than you sometimes already feel—

And yet, it is the only road you need,

And no matter where you let it take you, or how far you go,

Or how slowly you go, there are still no wrong turns.