The Walk

 I walk forlorn

slow, deliberate,

through a thinning fog

that smells of something ending.

The air is heavy with foreboding,

like rain that never falls,

like words that never leave the mouth.

Each step feels negotiated,

not taken.

I have walked long enough

against a wind that never rests.

Even resolve has weight.

Even patience fractures.

And steel 

however tempered 

bends under pressure

before it breaks.

So if I pause here,

it is not surrender.

It is the sound

of metal remembering

it was once fire