Flash Prompt: Someone returns to the backroads of their past.

Headlights blur my vision for a second, making me swerve.
“Thank goodness I haven’t been drinking,” I say to no one.

Driving these roads so long ago helped me escape.
Each turn would uncover a new adventure — or trouble.

Lights from behind glare through the rearview, casting light on old shadows.
Tick-tock of the blinker. A gentle steer to the right.

Down these old roads, I find myself again —
not making trouble, not visiting friends.

For years I escaped down these backroads.
Which is why I won’t travel them anymore.

This is my last journey on this gravel patch.
I won’t hit that same pothole again, either.

I’m visiting roads, and one by one
I’m making a map — marking them done.

Done traveling down them,
done poking their paths.

No — it’s not that I damn them —
only that there are more to be had.

I’m visiting streets, roads, routes, and hollers
with a plan: not to retrace their path.

I won’t drive down the same roads that led me where I am.
So one by one,
I remove them from my map.