Our Labyrinth
We met in a maze.
We were on different pathways but arrived at the same place; looking for the way out, but we found each other instead. It changed nothing and it changed everything. With our decision to dwell there and a hand to hold, the labyrinth seemed less daunting; less a challenge to beat, more a chance to explore.
Hold my hand, let’s get lost for a while
We were walled in, but the world was also walled out. Our chaos became our own little cosmos, separate from everyone else; their judgments and disappointments and impatient words.
We picked leaves from the hedges; children finding treasures. You told me your stories and I told you mine and we walked and walked and walked.
In our little universe, we didn’t need to make sense. We were free to talk about anything, with that freedom reserved for lovers and strangers, and we didn’t waste it. We talked about everything: childhood dreams and TV series, adolescent lessons, and grownup concessions. We talked about new friends and old lovers. We talked about our homes and our families. We translated each other’s words and laughed at the differences, and marveled at the similarities. We spoke of the present and we spoke of the past, never moving past the now.
Hold my hand, tell me which way to go: Left? Right? Should we just sit here for a while?
Strolled straight ahead, and backtracked from the dead ends. We turned left, right, left again. We listened to the gravel crunch below us and looked up at the birds above. I tried to picture their aerial view. What do we look like from the sky? I used to long for their wings, but I could never give up my hands, feeling like it felt to hold yours in mine.
Neither of us knew how we got there or what the way out would look like. We held our breaths at the corners, wondering is this it then? But there was always another turn, another wall that twisted and bent. Another chance, another choice, just ahead. It felt as infinite as the universe, except it wasn’t. Look at us looking at each other as we walk out through parallel gates.
It doesn’t feel like I thought it would, and I can’t help wondering whether we actually left or simply got separated. I still feel lost, sometimes. Maybe more than before, without your smiles. The questions sneak up on me and I wonder if it was real, or if I imagined it.
I see the lavender haze stealing over our starry maze. So much of it is dreamlike. If it lives still in the world of dreams, perhaps it’s not as lost as it seems. If I close my eyes, maybe I can still hear the wind rustling hedge leaves.
