for the love of secrets and laughter

I’ve always hated the fall.

It’s the bitter reminder that everything that I have come to love is dying; and I am left alone. The coming of winter: being the sole remainder of my kind – my nature brothers and sisters; that have comforted me when I felt most abandoned – and am left only with the sound of a howling wind in the icy darkness.

I don’t like being left behind.

However, this autumn, with my new-grown eyes, I’ve been able to clean off the sorrow in my lenses, and see the beauty.

Beauty is often found when you least expect it; and in the most unlikely of places.

I couldn’t sleep. I put on heavy boots and a thick coat and left my house, cutting though the silence as I stepped down flights of stairs with clown feet. There was a frost already settled on the frozen ground. I could hear the grass break under each step. There was a smell of damp dust that settled deep inside of my lungs; weighing me down. I walked for such a very long time, listening to the bump, bump against the dirt.

My feet carried me to a rock, deep inside a pasture, hidden by a veil of trees. I waded through a crunchy mountain of carcasses, and sat on the cold boulder. I pulled my arms and legs under my coat like a turtle. In the light of the moon shining easily though the empty branches, I watched my breath.

Overgrowth surrounded me.

I had sat here before; long ago. It was a faint memory in my crowded head.

It had been many summers ago. I had attended a recital spotlighting my grandmother at a red-wooden house at the end of an unseen lane. She chatted with her friends upon its completion; I had awkwardly slipped into the shadows.

An open window was my escape.

Running through the tall weeds I found this place after pushing aside brambles and arms of wiry branches. It was beautiful. Sunlight forced its way through the tops of the thick layers of leaves, peeping through the sparse cracks, and streaming through victoriously. Little white wild flowers and dandelions surrounded it. I thought I had found my way into a fairy haven.

I spent what felt like hours picking the wild grasses, and flowers to put upon my head as a crown, and dreaming. I reigned that day as a princess. It had been a castle, a prison, a fortress, a cottage. All of which there was a faceless prince to rescue me, fall desperately, ardently in love with my overwhelming beauty, sweeping me into his arms, and carrying me off to an eternity of bliss.

He had always been my first kiss.

This fantastical spell was broken only by the shrill call of my name; I ran across the field back to my impatiently awaiting grandmother, but not before setting my crown on the rock, and vowing to return to my kingdom.

I have very few memories. And the few that I do have are rarely happy. This particular memory had always been my own. My secret.

I had searched for this place many times before, but had never been able to find it.

Though the mazes of my tired mind, I made my way to a happy place. But it was different than what I had remembered. Much different.

Everything was smaller, and there was an air of regret. I had remembered a mountain of a rock upon which I ruled, and trees that would have put forests to shame. Everything was brighter, the air was sweeter, the sounds were more full of joy.

But there was only a suffocating silence, and cold darkness.

A reminder, perhaps, that everything is different now.

I cried.

In my sorrow, I grabbed a brittle looking branch and snapped it in half, and was shaken by what I found:

Green.

The inside of the branches were green. Though frozen, and stiff, everything was still alive. If I listened hard enough I could still hear the shallow breathing.

I was still alive.

I realized that my inner child and the innocence I’d once had not been lost. A thick layer of bark hid what was soft and beautiful inside. The life I had been mourning for so long had never vanished. It was still there – I was still here – hidden beneath layers of stories of my past, memories of my sorrow, and masked a person I pretend to be. I was only seeing what everyone else had been seeing; though my own doings I had build a rough bark around me to protect me from the bitter winds of life.

I found my way home with frozen eyelashes. Not being able to keep the laughter slipping from my lips.

My friends were not dead. They were still there, still alive. Just hiding until it was safe to come out again.

I was still here; just hiding.

My secret.

~C