One long, last, lingering look. Reflecting on the heartaches and mistakes of the past. I turn away and take a step along my road to somewhere, anywhere, anywhere I'm not known. I'm trying to escape my past, in my heart I know it will only catch up with me in time but I no longer care. All I want now is to escape, try to forget my past and start anew. I lost all he wanted in life. I am empty, drained of my will to go on. Still I walk my path听not knowing where it's taking me, not caring. As time drags on I weary of walking the same path alone and afraid, afraid that if I stop for just one moment to rest that my past will catch up with me and consume me just as it did before. I cry out. I cry out for the Lord to take pity, relieve me of my burdens, to show me that there is a purpose to it all, to just acknowledge my pitiful existence. With no reply, I cry, each tear carrying with it my pain and misery, yet still I walk this path of forgetfulness and denial. Finally my path splits in three. One seems to be the same as every other part I have walked, another seems to lead back to my past, and the third, well the third seems to stop at a hole in the road. I stop and sit in the junction to all three. I sit and think upon which road to take. The first leads me on the same as before and how I tire of that path. However the second path is worst as it leads me right back to that which I have been trying to escape. So that leaves the third path but to where does that lead? Perhaps it leads to the joy and happiness I have been searching for or perhaps it leads to a lonely death! Either way my journey will be over at long last. I walk my chosen path following its lead to the hole. I stop. For the hole sums up where this path has lead me, for it is no ordinary hole but rather a grave, and my grave at that. So it seems that it has lead me to a lonely grave. That doesn't听 matter as at least my journey is over and I can rest. Before I lay myself down into the warmth of death's embrace I take one last look over my past. As I look back I see a figure coming into view and then there she is the woman who captured my heart, the one I lost and have tried to forget for so long. It pains me to see her yet also fills me with warmth. She tells me that this is the wrong path and that it's not too late to walk back. As she tells me this I cry as I realise what a fool I've been, as I realise that instead of trying to run from my mistakes I should have been trying to fix them. Despite myself I find myself telling her that I can't walk back as there is nothing left there for me. That's when she points to the figures approaching and I look and see the smiling faces of friends looking back at me. I look at her, look into her eyes and thank her before collapsing into her embrace having found peace at last in the one place I hadn't looked, the very place I'd been trying to escape - my past. As we start on the road back to where I belong with friends and family, I stop and give thanks to the Lord for giving me that听one last look. |