What I Saw When I Wandered

This poem is about what happens when curiosity isn't just a spark, but a bond — when you become loyal to the journey itself, even if it hurts you.

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I only meant to peek, just a little curiosity,

past the lip of the known world where the sky turned lavender

and the trees hummed low secrets in a language I almost understood,

drawn by a glint between leaves,

a glimmering puzzle of colour and echo laid like a map across water I thought was solid.

I stepped carefully, barefoot across the pieces —

some soft and new, others cracked with memory —

each one asking something of me,

offering riddles shaped like butterflies,

their wings so fragile I wept when one touched my shoulder.

I glimpsed the truth then —

that some paths lead not forward but inward,

and that wonder is a loyal companion

only until the forest begins to speak in forgotten tongues,

until the light curls strange at the edges and the flowers lean in too closely,

until what I thought was magic begins to remember me by name.

Still, I wandered.

Because loyalty, once forged in longing, becomes impossible to betray,

and I had already promised the path I would follow it to the end,

even if that meant never returning whole,

even if the final piece of the curious puzzle was me.