Wrong Side Of The Road
Read more poetry by Britt Wolfe
In Canada,
I learned early
which direction to flinch.
Traffic comes from the left.
Danger announces itself
on schedule.
You look once,
then again,
because you are taught
that survival is procedural.
When I went to Australia,
no one warned me
that love moves differently there.
The cars came from the other side.
The instinct failed.
Nothing hit me—
and that should have been
my first clue.
Family did not advance
like weather.
They did not circle for weakness.
They arrived open-palmed,
without rehearsal,
without asking what I could endure.
At first, I braced anyway.
I stood at intersections
with my shoulders tight,
waiting for the impact
that never came.
Eventually, my body
stopped counting exits.
My jaw unclenched.
I forgot to listen
for the sound of engines
that meant I was about to be punished
for standing still.
I learned a new orientation:
that some homes do not require armour,
that affection can be directional
without being conditional.
And this—
this was the mistake.
Because when I came back to Canada,
I crossed the street
the way I had learned to there—
trusting the flow,
believing the signals.
I forgot where the danger comes from
here.
I stepped forward
with the wrong reflex—
the instinct to intervene.
To place my body
between harm and its silence.
To do what was right
without calculating
who would punish me for it.
The impact was immediate.
Unapologetic.
Familiar in a way
I had almost outgrown.
I was not eased into it.
I was savaged—
pulled apart by the hands
that once taught me
what family was supposed to mean.
There is no citation
for this kind of damage.
Only the sickening realization
that blood rewires you
whether you consent or not.
That safety, once learned,
does not uninstall itself
when you return to old terrain.
I stand at crossings now
with two maps in my body—
one that believes in shelter,
and one that remembers
what made me bleed.
I look left.
I look right.
And still,
sometimes,
I forget
which way the impact comes from
until it’s already happened.
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Poetry Anthologies by Britt Wolfe:
