Going in circles

A child on a bike

rode in circles

the way I used to ride—

believing the motion meant

going somewhere,

believing a dead end

was just a place to turn around.

The street was smaller now.

Sadder.

The houses held their light

close or let it go—

dark windows,

curtained windows,

the particular emptiness

of a street that ends

with nowhere else to go.

I drove through slow,

looking for the house

that used to be mine,

looking for the version of me

that thought circles

were freedom.

The houses all looked the same

and completely different.

Time had moved through them

the way it moves through everything—

leaving wreckage

that looks just like

the way things were supposed to be.

The child rode past.

Didn't see the car.

Kept going in circles.

I left the street

and didn't look back.