Pretending to be Trains (Prose Poem)

Life only goes one way. Forward. Whatever track we chose on those big intersections is the track we'll be on for a while. We chose a field to study, a person to be with, a place to live, a place to work, to have kids or not to, to adopt a dog, or to be a cat person.

Sometimes, we don't even know we are making a decision. We just stay on the track we got assigned. By Our parents, our environment, our teachers, our bosses, our partners, our children, and our pets.

We play the roles we have been given. Sometimes dutifully and sometimes resentfully. Joyfully or achingly. Dancing or slouching on.

But every train has brakes. And every track has more than just one switch point. We just don't notice. We're so busy rumbling along. There's no time to do anything but keep our heads down and keep going. Surely, there must be a train station somewhere. A place to rest and perhaps change track if we can make it work with the switchman.

So we go on.

And on.

And on.

Pretending to be trains on a single track.

But there is more than one track. And there are plenty of switch points. In fact, it isn't even a train on a track system.

It is vast empty space stretching forward.

The only way we can not go in life is the way back to yesterday.

But tomorrow has every direction imaginable. There's no need to wait for a convenient exit or switch point. There is no need to only go to the next track over ever so carefully so as not to jumble the train cars.

There is no need to limit ourselves to single steps.

We can have leaps and bounds as much as we can have steps. We can move up and down and centre way. Out into the observable universe or into the unknown inside ourselves. In both directions, there will be places nobody has ever gone before. There will be new ground and our steps the first ones to disturb the fresh snow that fell years ago.

There is always fresh ground right next to the well-trodden path masquerading as a train track.

You don't even have to climb a fence.