The Unfinished Sentence

And so I find myself again walking

through this city that changes faces

like a lover who never settles

on one story.

My shadow falls differently now,

longer perhaps or maybe I have grown

smaller under all this sky

that holds back the light.

The journal remains blank

in my hand, its pages waiting

for words I haven't learned yet,

for truths that hide behind

what I remember and what I've forgotten.

Each step takes me further

from the argument I had

with myself this morning,

that old dance of wanting

to go back and needing to move forward.

Here between the last building

and the next I am neither

the man who left his place

angry at his reflection,

I am not the one who will show up

somewhere with clear answers.

I am the space between each stride,

the pause before the pen

hits paper, the held breath

before jumping into whatever

comes next around this corner.

The city sings its ancient song

of changing, and I listen,

mid-step, mid-thought,

still becoming.