Road

Cracked, weathered, learning bruises on my feet, learning scars from stubbed toes, there is no rain in the unrelenting heat, there is no rain to cool the barren road. This I know for certain, for this is certainly my road. It may be tough and rough, near impossible to traverse here and there, travel it I will for it is my road. Even if I must turn back, track through wilderness unknown until stumbling flustered into orientation,  this road is my road. Here on my road when it rains, it pours; it floods with the salts of  this journey. Wade I must through waters mucky, brown from dust, now for that dryness do I lust, pushing through the churning waters, pursuing my road. 

At some points I stop and stand, staring before myself and beyond at nothing, behind at everything besides. A thought of destiny crosses my mind, regarding the road and all this time, whether or not it's the road or I to decide which way to wander. There I stop and stand, and I think, and query, and wonder. The sun sets beyond and rises again, but still there I am on a cracked piece of pavement daring the weather to what? To mar us with the passing of each star, a tick tock puzzle for some biologist afar, but still do we concern ourselves with the swirling space above, the road and I. Stop and stand, think and stare.

Go. Through the night bursts the sun. It's rays touch my toes, melting ices I never noticed form as there I stood on the road. Stopping isn't an option when the road ahead is golden, when the tumbled stones were chosen for their gleaming glitters and glows. Even they, after a steady pace traversing, grow hot beneath the foot. The stones, though gleaming, show cracks and signs of wear. Hurtling momentum through an emerged fork, the road breaks under foot despite the sure footing. A flash in the shadows, a stub of the toe. The sun is beginning to set on this cracked and weathered road. As it slips beyond the horizon grasses twine between my toes. They whisper soft against hurt soles, certainly not the gold I walked before. In the darkness I smile. This is my road.