Trail Blaze

Thursday

2am

Walking home from my campus job

head down and grumbling,

I bury my head deeper into my scarf in an attempt to escape the winds.

Hurrying towards the warmth of home, hands burrowing themselves

deeper into mismatched gloves.

I almost- almost pass by without noticing the keys that tumble

from the ever-growing tear in my old coat pocket.

Bending down to retrieve them, cursing

at the coat and the cold and the late night shifts,

I stop.

I look at the path behind me, at how far I made it in my trek home,

and find find one sole set of shoe prints, persistent in their path through the dark.

It's me

leaving the very first prints in the fresh snow dusting the sidewalk.

It's me

the one who earned that late-night job.

Who balances work and classes, involvements and obligations,

who catches every curving snowball hurled her way,

and who stokes the fire within her to fend off the frost.

Winter may be brutal,

but just like my tracks, making a statement in the white expanse,

I am relentless in my pursuit of a future

and I will beat this freezing weather.