If you must know, I was scared,
running above tree line in a snowstorm,
unable to see more than twenty feet in front
of my slipping feet. And no one else around.
So why did I keep running? Was it courage?
Determination? Stubborn foolishness?
When the story ends happily ever after,
it is easy to forget there was another possible ending,
but sometimes these alternate worlds
invite themselves into our thoughts,
strange tides of what if? and what then?
Though they are unpleasant, I welcome them.
Why not? I am safe, and they are like
the mean girls, the ones who say the cruelest things,
but because there is no truth in what they say,
it’s not so hard to just nod my head and smile.