Endless Crossroads
by Odin Roark

Like the game of pick up sticks
One’s crossroads bode uncertainty
When approached flagging
Awakening collisions of fate
Often with unintended abruptness

We don’t wish passive travel
Aware journeying from A to B
Requires purposeful focus
Attentive decisions

Yet…

Arrive we often will
Avoiding our left brain
Our right brain
Our sideways vision
Our auditory acuteness
Often obviating common sense

Perhaps

Such junctions
Present one’s personification of chance
Challenging abilities to understand

Such interchanges
Like the many crossed sticks
Of one’s youth
Seem larger than life
Bigger problems than we anticipated
Than we were willing to accept
And might never survive beyond

For often…

Intersections are ablaze
Unwanted encounters
Where caution and stop signals
Go ignored

Contorted lives morph
Into unwanted twisted reality
Where mistakes may be permanent
Where a second look
A begging off for another try
Where the laughter of the game
Falls heavily on silence
The deafening kind
The permanent kind

Everyday crossroads

So many of them