Free Write- Lost Among the Foliage

Sometimes you just need to write with no direction in mind

 

  I feel like I'm lost among the foliage.  The leaves bristle as I move past them.  I'm an intruder in their silent world of gentle breezes. Where do I make myself at home?  They say home is where the heart is, but my heart does not make a sound except boom, boom, boom.  Would I only have a direction to focus on. 

  

   My mind races with unnecessary worry.  Where am I going in life?  I have to make a decision right now, right this very second or everything I know will explode into tiny pieces of nothingness.  I feel the ground beneath my feet quiver with irritation.  It knows I tread with heavy thoughts of no joy.  I blink rapidly as shadows dance among the trunks of the oaks surrounding me.  I can't make out their true forms only fragments of ideas.  A wicked slide show of uncontrollable fears.  This world use to be my escape, but feels more like a prison.  The anxiety of what bad could happen has replaced the once wondrous possibilities of youth.

  The wind picks up around me as I work to calm myself. Like quicksand, the more I struggle the more my efforts move me into a state of panic.  Almost crazed.  Closing my eyes I lift my face to the canopy above.  I need to let go of this nonexistent control I think I have.  I need to relinquish the reigns and allow my world to crash.  The rain starts to hit my upturned face.  Faster and faster it pours from the sky and soaks my weary soul to the bone.  The wind pulling and pushing me about with no clear path.  I stumble to my knees and scrape my hands against the jagged roots jutting out around me.  Turning my bloodied hands, I face the mess I've created for myself. I let the pelting rain sting the cuts and wash the red away.

  Pain is good.  It means I can still feel.  I am still alive in my own confinement.  Facing the pain will set me free.  I can hear the echoes of a pain from long ago.  A pain I could not face until now.  I see his face and it brings me unfelt sorrow.  I could not save him.  I tried and tried, but he was already gone.  I turned my back on this sorrow, shut my self off from connections.  If we can't feel pain, how can we feel joy?  How can we let the light in when we've closed our minds off from anything and everything that could cause us discomfort?  My heart starts to beat with abandon.  The feelings of suppressed anguish topple me like a tidal wave.  I gasp for air as the unrelenting storm howls around me.  Branches break off and narrowly miss my face.

  I feel the climax of this storm approaching.  The raw, unbridled hurt digs at my being with relish.  It savors the taste of my despair as I yield to myself and what has become of me.  The jaded hard-shell of a suffering child never allowed to grow up emotionally, but stunted with loss.  My eyes sting from salty tears and bitter truths.  Pushing off from the ground I shift from side to side making my way to a tree.  I crave its stability and its roots that grow deep.  I hold on to the craggy bark as the wind slaps the wet fabric of my shirt against my skin.  I need to endure.

  I need to face this storm.  This manifestation of my own rage and hurt.  I turn my body slowly still keeping my hands connection to the solid oak.  My palms still slick with blood cradle the bark behind my back.  I feel like it's in this with me.  Like it knows what I face and will not let me face it alone.  My eyes face the angry sky and I accept the unnatural beating.  I let the rain engulf each neuron and free the caged recluse inside. I cannot control death, nor life, nor love, nor change.  I must accept what the life has given me in all its ugly, disturbing, twisted, wonderful, hopeful glory.

  The howling lessens to a hum and the rain diminishes to a trickle.  I feel the whoosh of relief as it travels through the boughs above.  The same emotions that I was hiding from were also holding me back from living.  Can it be that simple?  Can the sanctuary I've know from my youth be mine again?  Laying my heart open to both love and pain, I hope to find that this is true.  I hope to find my joy.

LK Billips 9-12-17

 

 

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Perhaps you should call this, "Despair and suffering in the name of love". It was a long time ago, but I well remember being in a similar place. I guess we just really need to beat ourselves up sometimes, and you've shown how it's done. Very good writing.