Maze Manifesto

Forever ended a year ago tonight
and I’m staring down a blank page.
Only an hour left
before I’m expected to “feel fine,”
before I have to “move on,”
before I have to “find someone else.”
Though it's all been said before and said all too well,
the echoes do not seem to fade.
The problem is my northern star
has far more idle time than I
and I’m feeling cocky enough to wait it out.

The only map I’ve written leads nowhere else.
Three blocks after some street we never knew,
or maybe just forgot,
you decided to rewrite the route.
When walking home,
one cannot help but backtrack:
A Last Kiss
A Second Goodbye
A First Kiss.
In the symmetry of it all, I lost the Why?
the Who?
Only a silhouette weeping
mapping circles around each wet blotch.
It was a mistake to use my blood as ink.
On the map we call a body, I can't decipher
between wounds and directions.

Did I take a left turn or did you forget my favorite song?
Was there a rest stop here or a chance to explore other options?
Like all star-crossed love, we hoped to be the exception
and lived on borrowed time.
Just enough time to map out how we got here
the route back is not as scenic as I hoped.

So instead,
I mind my business.
I must get home…
I don’t have Forever.
Just a page with a spot
labeled “Start.”