Rerouted
The weight pressed in
from every side.
I forgot the sound
of what I love.
I stayed too long
in the dark,
where nothing grew,
where I couldn’t move.
But the road betrayed the highway
turned me into trees,
where the lake was silver,
and the wind was breathing.
I pulled aside,
shut the engine,
let September
touch my skin.
Rerouted
not just past the traffic.
Rerouted
back into myself.
The mountains,
the silence,
the crickets in the grass
they still remember me.
The rocks, the rivers,
the echoes of my parents’ voices.
Our stream,
has always been my anchor.
I just forgot.
The long way home
rewrote my mind.
The long way home
was the only way back.
~Jessi