No Wrong Turns<\/p>\n
By<\/p>\n
Jennifer Angelina Petro<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are no wrong turns.<\/p>\n
Each and every time you have been lost<\/p>\n
You have eventually found your way out;<\/p>\n
It is the same with journeying inside.<\/p>\n
Walls appear when moments before<\/p>\n
There were none,<\/p>\n
Dead ends rise up like tombstones when you<\/p>\n
Least expect them to,<\/p>\n
Passageways narrow suddenly, and fall off<\/p>\n
Into deep ravines,<\/p>\n
But here you are, reading this\u2014and this<\/p>\n
Is hope on a string of words;<\/p>\n
Take them or leave them, the fact remains<\/p>\n
You are reading them, hearing them<\/p>\n
Now<\/p>\n
Here<\/p>\n
Now<\/p>\n
Safe<\/p>\n
Now<\/p>\n
Without guardrails<\/p>\n
And you are still not falling.<\/p>\n
I get it, don\u2019t worry.\u00a0 I am lost<\/p>\n
Much of the time myself, I hardly ever know<\/p>\n
Where the road is going\u2014if it indeed goes anywhere.<\/p>\n
Somedays I look down the road<\/p>\n
And only mist, or mist-infused darkness loom;<\/p>\n
Somedays the road ahead looks more like a movie screen<\/p>\n
Of the past than a road, and somedays,<\/p>\n
I even begin walking or exploring the edges<\/p>\n
Only to pull myself upright at the slightest sound<\/p>\n
And go back to where I was, and sometimes,<\/p>\n
Even that place\u2014the back where I was place\u2014<\/p>\n
Is gone; and sometimes, and, oh, I feel terrible<\/p>\n
For saying this\u2014but sometimes the road<\/p>\n
Is so utterly lonely, even though it is inhabited<\/p>\n
By many fine souls\u2014living, dead, in between\u2014<\/p>\n
And there are fireflies, and stars, rivers, and buttercups,<\/p>\n
And there is singing and crickets, and always, the moon;<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s face it though\u2014the road can be hard,<\/p>\n
And gravel gets in your shoes,<\/p>\n
And the desire arises more often than you would like to admit<\/p>\n
To simply roll up into a ball and dissolve into even more nothing<\/p>\n
Than you sometimes already feel—<\/p>\n
And yet, it is the only road you need,<\/p>\n
And no matter where you let it take you, or how far you go,<\/p>\n
Or how slowly you go, there are still no wrong turns.<\/p>\n
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