A perfect skull.
I wondered why I was on the driveway. The snow blanketed everything that formerly deterred me, burying it all, yet I was walking up the driveway.
So near the top, I started running. Anticipation got the best of me, I guess. I passed the house and treaded across the bridge. Still a guided path, but one less traveled nonetheless.
I found two dead trees whose branches broke off into stubs. They were angled toward each other, their stubs crossing like in an embrace and pointing like in an argument. At first I wanted to climb them. The half-branches appealed to my repressed inner child, taunting like a staircase. But, as always, I was too small to reach. So I just stood between them, looking up. The layers of grey appendages sliced into a lighter grey sky.
It wasn't a metaphor. It wasn't a realization. It was just calm and beautiful and brought a song into my head.
I had to leave and keep walking because there was more to see. My dogs were painfully aware of this at all times, and I often found myself deserted as a result of their curiousity. I scolded them to be patient and appreciate our present location, but they didn't listen. It's probably true for most of us humans that, like dogs, we refuse to slow down until our bodies force us to. So I let them pressure me ahead.
I clambered up the hill. My feet frequently skidded out from beneath me, an ultimate act of rebellion. We refuse to take your shit anymore. Hiking in the snow? Outrageous. Go home. But when my faithful hands filled in as scabs, my feet continued reluctantly. Still with the occasional outburst.
As they slipped, I wondered what it would be like to have hands following behind me, waiting there, suspended, just in case I needed to be caught.
Alone with my own feet and hands, I made it to an edge that overlooked a scene frozen like a panoramic. The house stood warm and welcoming off to my right, and I saw my dad dutifully shoveling snow off of the porch.
From up there, everything was smaller than I expected. Except for the snow-covered treetops exploding into the sky. I was eye-level with the explosions, watching my dad and the house, from so far away, and I was overcome by a strangely comfortable feeling of detachment.
The dogs whined, urging again. I had a destination in mind.
We stopped by a rock coated in frozen water and I treated the creatures to icicles. I thought of how people say it's not the Destination that counts, but the Journey. I thought of how sometimes, I think it's impossible to appreciate the Journey until you've completed it. Or at least stopped to catch your breath. I hurled an icicle at a tree. It multiplied into fragments that bounced off of several surrounding trees and rocks before tumbling downward and disappearing.
I tumbled upward, onward. I was close enough to see it. I noted that I was approaching from a different path than I had before. I clung to only compulsion and clarity. Certainty. And then my feet breathed relief when we stepped from the snow to the leaves. I thought about how maybe they're the same dead leaves as were there last time I went to the cove. I stood and watched the trickling, half-frozen waterfall. My thoughts, in contrast, snowballed and flooded.
I turned to appraise the place that I thought of as ours. I remembered our linked hands, the cutting October air, the one word that lingered before our lips awkwardly found each other. I watched my memory trace the movement of our figures, to the rock, tangled, legs wrapped around him, hands exploring me, and the voice, "Don't worry, I've got you," and it had been true, but just right then. He stood, we moved, I shivered, we smiled.
Still tracing. I remembered it all. I turned every minute of it inside out. I felt it on my skin. I saw it all over again. And I didn't want to like the memory, but I did.
I looked down, at the leaves and the ground where we had been. And my laugh emerged out loud, spilling into the dirt because right there, coated and disfigured by time, was a small skull.
A perfect metaphor.
I needed it. The only perfect ending I got out of the relationship. The break hadn't been clean, instead one that left loose ends I was too stubborn to restitch.
He regretted everything, I say.
But that realization had long ago lost its power to slice me.
I look at the rock--not ours. Just a rock now.
My dogs tire of urging. They run off.
Quickly, two statements. For myself.
I'm done with you.
I don't regret it.
I run off, too. Not away from. Just away.
. . .
I see the words "Be Comfortable, Creature." I'm immersed in that feeling that swims over your head and dives down your arms, massaging from the inside out.
So near the top, I started running. Anticipation got the best of me, I guess. I passed the house and treaded across the bridge. Still a guided path, but one less traveled nonetheless.
I found two dead trees whose branches broke off into stubs. They were angled toward each other, their stubs crossing like in an embrace and pointing like in an argument. At first I wanted to climb them. The half-branches appealed to my repressed inner child, taunting like a staircase. But, as always, I was too small to reach. So I just stood between them, looking up. The layers of grey appendages sliced into a lighter grey sky.
It wasn't a metaphor. It wasn't a realization. It was just calm and beautiful and brought a song into my head.
I had to leave and keep walking because there was more to see. My dogs were painfully aware of this at all times, and I often found myself deserted as a result of their curiousity. I scolded them to be patient and appreciate our present location, but they didn't listen. It's probably true for most of us humans that, like dogs, we refuse to slow down until our bodies force us to. So I let them pressure me ahead.
I clambered up the hill. My feet frequently skidded out from beneath me, an ultimate act of rebellion. We refuse to take your shit anymore. Hiking in the snow? Outrageous. Go home. But when my faithful hands filled in as scabs, my feet continued reluctantly. Still with the occasional outburst.
As they slipped, I wondered what it would be like to have hands following behind me, waiting there, suspended, just in case I needed to be caught.
Alone with my own feet and hands, I made it to an edge that overlooked a scene frozen like a panoramic. The house stood warm and welcoming off to my right, and I saw my dad dutifully shoveling snow off of the porch.
From up there, everything was smaller than I expected. Except for the snow-covered treetops exploding into the sky. I was eye-level with the explosions, watching my dad and the house, from so far away, and I was overcome by a strangely comfortable feeling of detachment.
The dogs whined, urging again. I had a destination in mind.
We stopped by a rock coated in frozen water and I treated the creatures to icicles. I thought of how people say it's not the Destination that counts, but the Journey. I thought of how sometimes, I think it's impossible to appreciate the Journey until you've completed it. Or at least stopped to catch your breath. I hurled an icicle at a tree. It multiplied into fragments that bounced off of several surrounding trees and rocks before tumbling downward and disappearing.
I tumbled upward, onward. I was close enough to see it. I noted that I was approaching from a different path than I had before. I clung to only compulsion and clarity. Certainty. And then my feet breathed relief when we stepped from the snow to the leaves. I thought about how maybe they're the same dead leaves as were there last time I went to the cove. I stood and watched the trickling, half-frozen waterfall. My thoughts, in contrast, snowballed and flooded.
I turned to appraise the place that I thought of as ours. I remembered our linked hands, the cutting October air, the one word that lingered before our lips awkwardly found each other. I watched my memory trace the movement of our figures, to the rock, tangled, legs wrapped around him, hands exploring me, and the voice, "Don't worry, I've got you," and it had been true, but just right then. He stood, we moved, I shivered, we smiled.
Still tracing. I remembered it all. I turned every minute of it inside out. I felt it on my skin. I saw it all over again. And I didn't want to like the memory, but I did.
I looked down, at the leaves and the ground where we had been. And my laugh emerged out loud, spilling into the dirt because right there, coated and disfigured by time, was a small skull.
A perfect metaphor.
I needed it. The only perfect ending I got out of the relationship. The break hadn't been clean, instead one that left loose ends I was too stubborn to restitch.
He regretted everything, I say.
But that realization had long ago lost its power to slice me.
I look at the rock--not ours. Just a rock now.
My dogs tire of urging. They run off.
Quickly, two statements. For myself.
I'm done with you.
I don't regret it.
I run off, too. Not away from. Just away.
. . .
I see the words "Be Comfortable, Creature." I'm immersed in that feeling that swims over your head and dives down your arms, massaging from the inside out.
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