Settle

“Maybe you’re exactly
where you’re supposed to be.”

The words
hit me while
I was nowhere important
doing nothing of interest
walking from block to block
in a rented neighbourhood.

Where was I, anyway?
I had lost the scent. What
was I following?
All those years spent moving
ahead? going
somewhere? Stuck.
Here?

“Maybe you’re exactly
where you’re supposed to be.”

That sentence, which felt like a
death sentence, which fell onto me
like a guillotine
sheared my head wide
drained it of the moving, the leaving
the wishing for somewhere else

stunned me with silence
with space
with breath
and I exhaled
and spread out
and began to listen,
began to settle right here, where I am.