I have reached the end of a long, long road
of gravel, sand, and grass. At times it had trees
to the side, trees with thin trunks and few branches,
standing no more than a few feet tall.

Other times it was empty, arid and dark, the only light coming
from lamps placed here and there on concrete ground,
endless, endless concrete ground. It was a long, long
road and I grew tired of walking.

I grew tired of walking, but I walked on,
sure that someday the path would get clearer.
I walked and I walked, and at least I reached the end,
where I saw that the miles and miles of changing

landscapes, stars, clouds, gravel, sand, and grass
had deceived me, and led only to a cliff.
I couldn’t turn back or move forward,
but only sit forever like this.

And so forever I will sit.
I will ceaselessly resist
the temptation to jump off the cliff,
ignore its simple promise of a quick forgetfulness.

I will wait for a bridge to be built.
But the waiting gets tiresome, and how could a bridge
be built? The emptiness over the edge stretches beyond
the horizon, the empty horizon that beckons me forward

into its darkness. It is then that you tell me, “a road is
a very narrow thing compared to what surrounds it.”
There are forests, starry night skies,
cities with hundreds and hundreds of roads.

I do not have to walk this one. I step away from the cliff,
head into the unknown.