We were younger, then.

We wore our youth like mud-stained combat boots, stomping through soil so deep that our weight sank us in the muck up to our knees--we didn't care. Or, we didn't notice. The sun sinking low would leave behind shadows painted on the skies as we traveled along damp, dark pathways, venturing toward a greater unknown. Stepping side-by-side, our hands intertwined, we searched not knowing what we would find--only being sure that we would it together. Together, because how unbearable we believed the cold, coming night to be, if not for each other.

I suppose, without warning, the journey we plodded shifted. Our trail, always passable if yet unpredictable, betrayed us--became so sodden that, as we sank, our fingers interlaced pulled in opposite directions. Our grasp on one another weakened.

We separated.

Though deprived of the sensation of your palm pressing against mine, I could still feel the heat of your breath dancing into my neck--you were near to me, somehow. You were not altogether gone. I told myself that you were only lost, that you only needed a map.

My hands then empty starved for something to clutch, and they soon steadied themselves on pen and paper. I wrote to you. Like an ancient Indian chief carving into his fingertips, sealing his word with the blood dripping from his flesh, I sealed myself to you in the ink that flowed onto those pages. You only needed a map, I reassured myself. I carefully noted which direction you could follow, described every bending oak tree and the left turn at the four-and-a-half-foot wide puddle and the western view in the clearing you would stumble upon en route--on your way to find me.

However, upon finishing, I simply read the directions again to myself, tucked the paper back into my pocket. What absurdity, to send a map to someone else when I was yet unsure of my own direction. There, I then stood alone in the mire of muddied memories of you.

Time passed, and the air upon my neck chilled. I am growing too old to be wearing the soiled shoes of a wanderlust youth. I should have settled already, as I am sure that you have, in the confidence of my own destination. Yet, here I am still searching, not for somewhere else but for someone else--for you.

Here I am, finding that the only one lost is me.