Footprints

It’s the winter of ’05. Christmas Eve.

With a pillowcase full of Kudos bars

and a half-eaten birthday cake, we run.

Time escapes with us. We follow the half-

frozen creek, the winds whipping through the

trees, cracking our cheeks and burning our
 
banished faces.

Dawn finds us first: her sun shining

like a searchlight. Hunger, regret, fatigue

and fear quickly follow. One slow stumble-

step at a time, we argue and cry through

the thigh-high snow. Refuge comes as a small

cobble-stone bridge curved over the crooked

creek. Finding a tiny alcove below,

we pack in side-by-side and back-to-back.

Too exhausted to eat, we fall asleep:

A bunched-up bundle of lost boys. Men are

laughing in my dreams. Dogs bark. We awake

to state troopers and staff on ATVs.

Once back at the cottage, I ask a nurse

how they found us. She smiles and says that

They just followed the footprints in the snow.