Letters from the end of her road

I’d like to write letters to the woman sitting at the end of her road,

remembering what it was to be born and stretched under the summer sun.

I’d like her to find amusement in my nativity

and write back in rhymes of how her palms grew so worn.

I’d like learn what exactly what made the smile lines beside her eyes so deep,

and her voice so sweet.

I’d like to learn how she lived like she had nothing to lose

until she had nothing left.

She’d say:

feel it all,

high and low alike.

Listen deep,

before you are numb to all things worth hearing.

Walk with no shoes,

pay no mind to rubber souls.

She’d say:

my dear,

your body is a composite of all that you love,

and all that you hate but it is yours.

Your arms are wide enough to carry only what need,

and you stumble simply to teach you how to fall.

She’d remind me how moments alone are no cause for alarm,

but rather a chance to be with myself and everything else all at once.

Plainly she would say:

It is fine to be afraid,

so long as you keep moving.

With each letter I shall place them in a box.

And as I sit at the end of my road,

stretching under the summer sun,

I’ll read words of my own, and stories from my life.