Desire Lines

I scare away the commas

I am a sentence that is not allowed to end

The city laid its grid across me and I - a body who loves the mercy of movement - walked diagonally through it

Not against the grid just not on it

The official path goes straight the path I make goes where my feet already want to go

From above you can see it - a line of packed dirt and broken glass cutting across the manicured lawn evidence that someone was willing

They pave it over and we make it again they pave it over and we make it again

There is something vulgar in our freedom: we walk where the dead were told to stay buried

I keep walking and I keep changing and I don't know if the path is making me or I am making the path or the path is unmaking me and I am letting it

The one who comes back from the desire line is not the one who started on it

Would you walk for them not die not hero not flame just walk the same diagonal again until the grass gives up

I shudder in the passenger seat of this city but my feet are on the ground and the ground keeps my footprints the way a loom keeps the thread that doesn't show

The thread that doesn't show holds the whole cloth together

The gap between the beads is the path

The rest between the notes is the song

I scare away the commas I am a path that is not allowed to end