Away

We walked today, because your feet moving seemed, some how, important.   You are far from home.  Far from the city, the country, the continent where your friend took his life. And you, who tread lightly on pain and live heavily in this world, said little.  But you know that you have been carried to that other life taking, the one you think you should have known was coming. The one you cannot shed. 

You weren't home then, either.  You don't blame yourself for this one "or that one either" you say, but you do.   

Keep walking, I want to say. As if moving is a right, or a balm or a need or a way of being that justifies not being home.  Reason enough.

And you recite Dorothy Parker. "All those good reasons," you say.

Résumé

Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.