Leaves

The expanse of literary conquest besets inadequacy. To summarize an event so large I shall endlessly find myself in it's strife, I humbly offer a synoptic quip.

True to the tone of the love I found after the pain that stalked me: never will I tell you that you are wrong for committing worse crimes than you endure.

I may be tired from the sorrow, so I moan and grumble. Or it may be the pleasure of seeking that drives me to express this, desperate to find relief.

Or the motivational recipe to explain myself may be informed from a disassociation withdrawal… a recipe where I measure ingredients, stir, and bake with heat and fury to feed the exterior and interior critics.

Either way I swear when I abandon concern, run from my family's kitchen, and my feet hit the ground that the packed dirt offers a more reassuring response than I even understand. The earth, grass, and pebbles beneath me roar with applause for self-seeking.

My family loves me, or so they believe. So I stayed in their love. Until his arrival... when he proved he could see me. It happened late at night, when I sneak out the house while the family slumbers. Just to be near water… or trees… or moonlit air unhindered by day light’s needs. And then I saw his sorrow. Such a sweet melody.

We developed a habit of the late night sojourns. Out by the pier, if he walks by, I ask him over. He comes over and I don’t care either way if he’ll be gentle or take me by his will. Not like those options ever present themselves with true faces in the other avenues of my life. Or maybe face value does not mean as much as I think.

Day time choices hung over me heavily the night we met… And when they taunt like that I always seek a bigger mess to get my hands in and muck around. I know my pattern.

His mess would do. So I told him I could fix it. The hollow in his eyes took me by surprise.

Well, one day I suppose I took it too far. I beckoned to him as he passed by, asking him to follow me and jump a fence. The family was on vacation. They always had their big bay windows wide open and I love spying on their life choices. But they never eat their fruit. A whole garden of lush fruit trees and now they would wilt! So I picked a luscious pear... I made him take one too. At a mansion that I did not own.

I didn’t feel bad. If I am honest, the garden kept murmuring at me to do it. It knows I scratch at my cage too. So it did not mind that I took of it's bounty. As a participatory tyrant of it's environment, I heard that fruitful tree grove tell me more than what this suburban fable of love could be. It radiated some kind of universal love like a delusion so sweet I needed it. Where humans see themselves as the dominating predator that they are and give up their choke hold on Earth out of mercy. So I bit down. Hard.

I ate with greed, juice dripping on my lips. And his. My fingers reached his. Then my tongue. We sang a tune of abandonment.

What to choose when choice has been chosen? Where to turn for the grace necessary to endure the marathon of vitriolic onslaughts created in our collective associative-driven mind? The collective mind that wants full control.

Why not live for a better tomorrow? When can I let my toes touch down and allow the pebbles and blades of green or dried grass communicate their desires?

The pain I feel... the pain of this stranger who walks by me at the pier... Sometimes I remember how it left our bodies and murmured through that abandoned garden. Leaves fluttered and lay peacefully that night. The whole time they just wanted their will to be known.

Anyway, it turns out the fabled suburban love is a self-protective love. An abandoned garden is still a monitored garden. I blamed myself for the fallout. Took my leave of our pier meetings. I would not bear to see the hollowness in his eyes deepen. Not on my accord. At least I had a home to sneak back into after our stolen moments.

No one looks at me the same. I floated in an unearned trust in the neighborhood before. Now tense efforts to ignore the strife that surrounds me tightens the air, like an old used up ponytail holder. All frayed and left out on a sidewalk.

Oh well. Trash day nears. I'll toss it in and hope for another means to sneak out the home for release.