The Rucksack and Running Shoes

Always by the door they wait, My rucksack and running shoes, Ready for the midnight flight From places I never could call home. I learned early to travel light, To leave no trace, make no deep imprints. A ghost boy growing into a shadow man, Forever feeling like the unwelcome guest. In this northern pocket of nowhere, Where dreams dissolve in bottles and needles, Where family trees twist and break Under generations of hardship, I glimpsed salvation in an open road, A truck, a camper, the three of us Moving through landscapes unclouded By our histories or anyone's expectations. Those highway days were my paradise. Strangers in towns with no memory of us, Just a father, a mother, a child laughing As if happiness could be that simple. At thirty-four, I've learned the bitter truth: Systems aren't built for keeping love intact. The game was rigged against us from the start, Two broken children trying to parent whole. You chose your mother's path—the promise Of stability she dangled like a locket, While I remained committed to our nomad dream, Unable to reconcile these diverging roads. I surrendered my vision and came home, Trading freedom for familiar walls, Because I had sworn upon their newborn heads I would never become my father's ghost. The trades were meant to be temporary, A steppingstone toward our homestead, Where I could be present every moment, Not just the exhausted shadow at bedtime. I rose before dawn, drove through blizzards, Returned after dark to sleeping faces, Seeking refuge in the bottle to numb The pain of missing everything that mattered. You had enough, how could I blame you? The man you loved had vanished into work, Into fatigue, into obligation and debt, While you carried the weight of everyday alone. Now courtrooms twist my sacrifice to sin, Paint me monster when I meant provider. The revelation of intentional pregnancies A knife-twist in an already bleeding wound. My children look through me now, not at me, Taught to see a villain where once stood father. The only crime I committed was absence, Trying to build security from nothing. I'm reduced to numbers on paper, A paycheck, a visitation schedule, A man hollowed by system and circumstance, While watching you become someone I don't know. Your mother's shadow grows longer between us, As our children lose the childhood we promised, And I stand helpless at the edge of their lives, Clutching court orders instead of small hands. Every night, I keep them by the door, My rucksack and running shoes, Not for escape now, but as memorial To the wanderer who once believed in happy endings. I pray something keeps them safe When I cannot stand guard or guide their way. I pray someday they'll understand the choice Between being present and providing. But tonight, I just watch the empty road, Where karma travels at its own slow pace, And wonder when it arrives, if any of us Will recognize salvation when it comes.