We walk the same circles
stepping into prints
we left decades ago,
expecting the ground
to feel solid.
Instead, the wet earth yields.
The cold rain
that once bred purpose
now settles
in the throat
as quiet loss.
Decades of quiet distance,
strained shorelines and familiar fantasies,
and still the wheel turns
back to the hollow
where you used to stand.
We tell ourselves
the next era will be different,
that time softens the steep climb
yet every return is a ledger
of what remains,
and what was taken
when you went silent.
The spinning stops here,
not because the road has ended,
but because I am left
standing in the rain
holding all the years you could not finish.
October 2026 Poetry Project
Day 17 of 31
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