There is no finish line—
only a trail that eats my name
with moss-covered teeth.
The wind doesn’t ask why I came.
It pulls me like a toy cart
left out in the Sunday rain.
There is a root in me
that once forgot the ground.
I have no maps.
Only thirst.
The stones speak to me
in the language of fossils—
it takes them three syllables to say:
stay.
My body, made of mundane affections,
moves to disobey
the algorithm that promised success
in exchange for sleep.
Each step is a kiss on the earth,
a contract with the mud,
a vote for slowness.
At the edge of the ravine,
I don’t think of myself.
I am the fog that watches.
A defiant body that climbs,
evaporates,
and disguises itself as a cloud.
The backpack is heavy.
But heavier still is the name
I left behind,
pinned to a city pole,
between the hum of Wi-Fi
and a blinking 9 a.m. reminder.
Now, I am no one.
Not human,
not saint.
Just a two-legged creature
trying to relearn
the verb to be
in this rediscovered world.