Landmarks, Timestamps

It is said that

And I trust that

By the shit we traipsed through

This is how the path was made

you in your Airwalks, I in my Chuck Taylors

when both used to cost $25 per pair

or I in my sandals, you in your bare feet

when we were taking our Jesus phase quite seriously

before you settled on some comfortable work boots

and I in something I felt I could be taken seriously 

at my various graduate school internships

So we pave the way by going it

you with the built-in compass in your medial parietal cortex

I with the built-in clock in mine

With whatever we’re equipped

We track through the same mud

Generally keeping each other laughing for most of the journey

But intermittently despairing

I to ask you which landmarks we’ve already passed

You to confirm the accuracy of the timestamps we placed upon them

It’s been told to me that we may expect the trails to be treacherous

that we won’t always get the benefit of a star chart

and we may not even think it’s all that practical to have a timepiece

but that we may each expect a navigator

if we but make the space

and we may throw in a timekeeper

if we have that luxury

You and I got both

You to mock me for my fascination with a tattered road atlas, compulsively highlighting the routes already taken

I to chide you for still not wearing a watch 

I count on it

Like my subconscious automatically counts the seconds

That the missteps 

That the switchbacks yielded

Every gash from every tumble

Every mesquite thorn or sea urchin spine dug out

Every shot of the mezcal thrown back to treat said mesquite thorn puncture

Brought with it the needed context

-Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit-*

                    *(which is super Latiny for what I'm trying to get across here)

In our delirious states

You to point southward the placement of the sun

I to interpret the when of the where its shadow does fall

Now then it could be

misleading

to say the least

Once we arrive at the destination

Received by our respective familiars seeing your boots caked

While an even distribution of the crusting covers me up to my torso

Which is what happens

every time

Every

Time

I get despondent, nigh catatonic

And it becomes necessary for you to pull me along

Because I know better than to selflessly tell you

“Oh, just go on without me”

How exactly then would I keep from getting lost?

How exactly then would you arrive on time?

It hasn’t failed us yet