poem: She

She
She turns,
But the gate closes behind her and
Locks maniacally,
She goes to it,
Looks through the bars,
A prisoner,
Trapped,
Unable to get back.
Everything she's ever known on one side,
Her on the other.
And so, to the unknown,
She turns.

She walks,
But her steps falter,
A baby, taking her first steps without assistance.
By day, she staggers in the hot sun,
By night, she gropes blindly in starlight.
In the morning and evening,
Parched and cold,
She stops to rest in the scattered shade of an oak tree.
But she knows she must continue on
For every time she turns
A gate closes.
She can look back, but
Never go back.
And so she turns, and so
She walks.

She becomes,
More than the person she was.
She realizes that the twisty road
Was really a spiral,
The gates only in her mind,
And the losses only a part of life.
She knows now that she could go back,
Could always have gone back,
But she knows better now.
She will always turn to look back,
Take what should be through the gate with her,
But then, as she must,
She turns,
She walks,
And finally, as fate ordains for all people,
She becomes.