The Path

I lay facedown on the path,
tears pooling in my cupped palms
breathing in bits of earth
and choking them out between sobs.
I had been walking towards the edge of infinity
when I asked why –
and this made me stop.
Stop my journey, stop my thoughts, stop my will.

Footsteps sounded behind me,
yet I hadn't the heart to wipe away
the tears streaming down my battered cheeks.
What was the use?
When I asked why, no one answered
for there was no one there who knew,
and I couldn't stand the fact
that I might have been walking
for no purpose.

The pat, pat of bare feet paused by my side.
I did not look up
when I felt a hand on my shoulder,
but the voice spoke all the same:
"You've stopped.
The path is here, spread out before you –
You still have turns to make, dreams to follow.
And you've stopped.
Why?"

I shook my head slowly:
"That's what I asked.
I asked why, and I found no answer,
least of all from myself.
Now I don't know –
maybe I have nothing to know –
and how can I continue like this?
I can't stand it.
I wanted silence, and when I found it,
I couldn't stand that either.
I'm tired of walking an infinite path.
I'm tired of never ceasing to move forward.
I'm tired of being pushed in a direction I never chose.
I'm tired of this – all of this!"

"And so you stopped?"

"I—"
—was about to reply,
but those words, those simple four words
caught me unawares.
Questions were usually what kept me going,
but this one was holding me back.

Why?

"Why?" my sole comforter echoed.
"This is who you are. This is who you've been,
because you are everything you ever will be.
You are silence; you are voices.
You are knowledge; you are ignorance.
You are this direction; you are the other.
You are this path; this path is you…
and you choose now to stop?
You asked why, and wondered
why there was no answer –
but how will you find your answer
if you cannot even allow it to find you?
You believe you have stopped
because of a simple question –
Why?"

I stared at the reflection in my tears,
stared at my stained face.
How lost I looked.
Slowly, I tipped my hands forward,
and the sad little droplets rolled off my fingertips
pieces of my forlorn reflection
sinking into the path,
the path that was here.

At last, I looked up.
The eyes of my sole comforter
were so bright that my own eyes
were dried in the instant of a smile.
A strong hand grasped my own, and
there was the path,
bathed in my tears as well as my laughter.

And hand in hand
we stood,
and we continued on.