it is not mere happenstance
that, so often now,
people walk halfway
across parking lots,
into stores, banks,
post offices, cafes,
before turning back,
having forgotten
their masks,
essential
as air we breathe
now.
are we forever
to go backwards,
into the past,
retracing steps,
trying to remember,
grasping at air,
striving to savor
every breath taken,
albeit through a filter,
when our eyes look ahead,
hearts leading us
forward?
more doors have opened
in these days after
the fact,
but it is like we are still
inside,
looking out,
wondering when
the road won’t bend,
splitting halfway,
branching in a new direction.
but if we waited for that,
we’d be waiting forever,
because, always, there is something
new, as change would will it,
all that remains
is that heart that stays the course,
leading us forward,
no matter how much
these days are different.
Kathryn Sadakierski is a twenty-one-year-old writer from Massachusetts whose work has appeared in Capsule Stories, Poetically Magazine, The Voices Project, and elsewhere. She collects vinyl records, vintage books, and memories, which inspire her art.