Hazy Shades of Me

He trudges along his near invisible path. The path he’s been trudging his entire, whole life.

His thin trail cloaked in twisted and tangled trees and trunks. Hidden under broken and bent barb and brush.

Holed up inside his rusted roost at the end of his ratted road, he sidles his wood-burning warmer, rocking and reading, wearing and wondering, settling, suffering.

He sleeps silently in his bed with none, eats quietly at his table for one. Windows assaulted with carwash crepe, angry branches leave insides sodden with weight.

The path he’s been trudging his entire, whole life.

But, had it been forever this way? The more he thought, the more he sought, to find a time when he’d had a spine.

So, he stuffs his wool-covered feet into steel-shielded sheets, throws a long-handled axe across his back and unburdens. He hacks away at thick, burly trunks. Chops at the rot where the deep roots have sunk.

Ever so slowly, the changes he’s made somehow let the old him fade. As he swings and sways, things just fall away.

And, when he’s done, he is light.