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Fragments of Frost and Fire - Episode 8 - The Narrow Path

 There are moments in life when the choices before us aren’t clear-cut—when we’re not deciding between right and wrong, but between two difficult, uncertain paths. Some are quiet, personal crossroads: whether to stay or leave, speak or stay silent, act or wait. Others are much larger, woven into the world’s violence and velocity—choices that ask who we are, and who we’re willing to become.

The Narrow Path is a poem about those in-between places. It's about walking the line between action and retreat, resistance and resignation. It's about the tension we live with—individually and collectively—as the world asks more of us than certainty can offer.

This piece doesn't aim to provide answers. Only to hold space for the questions, and the weight of walking.

The Narrow Path
A winding dirt road cuts through arid landscape dotted with sparse shrubs and small trees. The aerial view shows the red-orange earthen path snaking through the semi-desert terrain, with scattered green vegetation creating a mottled pattern across the rust-colored ground. The road curves gently as it extends into the distance, creating a striking contrast between the warm tones of the soil and the cooler greens of the drought-resistant plants that populate this dry, open countryside.
Photo by Rachel Claire: https://www.pexels.com/photo/narrow-road-between-fields-with-plants-4993212/

We walk the line where shadow slips beneath the trees,
not night, not day—
but the hush between.

Not the storm,
not the calm—
but the wind just before it breaks.

We stayed
when the house no longer echoed us.
Not love, not hate,
but something worn and weathered
between.

We left the job with steady pay,
not chasing dreams,
not fleeing dread—
just needing air.

We watched a friend unravel
and wondered if our voice
would heal or haunt.
Not savior, not ghost—
just the ache of not knowing.

We saw a man taken from the street
by men in unmarked black,
no words spoken—just vanishing.
We posted, we shouted,
but did not follow.
Not cowards, not heroes—
just shaking and still.

We read of families burned from their homes,
children disappeared,
names erased from maps and memory.
The word was genocide.
We whispered it—too late.
Not ignorance, not denial—
just the comfort of elsewhere.

We stood in heat that broke the sky,
watched fires turn forests into smoke.
Knew the air was wrong,
the season warped.
Still we bought, still we burned.
Not helpless, not free—
just tangled in the thrum of now.

We watched flags wave like weapons,
truth traded for spectacle.
Watched neighbors become enemies
because it was easier than listening.
Not righteous, not rebel—
just tired, and tempted
to shut the door.

We held the pen
and asked it to tell the truth.
But truth splits like shale.
Not lie, not fact—
but fractured lines
we choose to follow or ignore.

We stared into the machine
that offered us a thousand hands
to do our work.
Not theft, not craft—
just mirrors in the fog,
and no clear self to hold.

Still we walk—

not forward, not back,

but balanced

on the knife-edge of choice.

The path is narrow,
edges jagged and steep.
One missed step
and you fall into the maw of conflict,
or into the exile of retreat.

Each step a choice—
between stillness and slipping,
between breath
and the breaking of it.

And somewhere far—
beyond the reach of decision—
a bird rises
on the edge of the wind,
not flying away,
not circling back,
but held
exactly
in the tension.

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