Test Results

Sitting in my inbox is a link.
A link I have not clicked.
I do not click it, because I am nervous.
Not afraid.
My stomach folds over.
It won’t be cancer.
It won’t be Lyme disease.
It won’t be a marriage proposal.
It is, the further I back out, getting smaller in scope.
But it won’t disappear from view.

Creating distance is a default reaction.
A long view is a shield, a balm
The further away from a blast,
The less skin gets blown off the body.
(It won’t explode, either.)
No, it won’t be the end of me,
Nor will it be my saving grace.

The link is just a foothold, a promontory.
When I click it, new paths will either open up
And take me away, or they will close with thorns and locks.
I will still be me afterwards.
I will have all my digits and bracelets.
I will still walk the woods in autumn.
But I will also be different.
A culmination of so many tiny links
Building in my subconscious a way of walking,
A way of seeing…

Enough now.
Poetry is such sweet distraction.
But warriors do not dawdle.