She aims for where she thinks she wants to go,
succeeding more than often to arrive,
but sometimes it’s the journey in the know;
instead of her, the process makes the drive.
And she is looking backwards in that case –
her eyes and mind are noting where she’s been
as blindly she reverses through a space
where things she didn’t figure pull her in.

So when she smoked that final cigarette
an almost year ago, she never knew
she’d meet the shape of grief, and stranger yet,
that venture would prepare her for a new
relationship to substances and food,
suffusing her with wiser attitude.