The Path We Tread

By: Catherine Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You sit across the kitchen table from me, 

Your voice laced with anger

Agony collecting like rain on the window pane of your eyes 

I want to reach  my hand across the oak laminate 

To tell you that I understand!

Give you the (non-existent) map for the whole 

Rambling, tedious, hopeless 

Adventure that led me here, to listen to you,

The back-breaking, mind-wrenching path I have tread

That I now stand back at the beginning of 

As I wave you on your own way

 

Because that’s the catch in all relationships:

Even if we want to wrap you in blankets, sit you on the couch,

And tell you to stay—

We all have to find the strength to live our own lives, 

To forge our own paths

 

Paths that will take us far and wide, so wide that

One day, we may look up, 

And the sky above us will be different from the one the other person sees 

But this distance will never be too much, because

 

Though I have to watch you from afar,

Watch as you stumble, and skin your knees,

Bite my lip as I hold out a Band-Aid that you’ll never use

I’ll be here 

Waiting, under our beautiful skies 

 

Art Piece by Richie Combs