From Here, Now

We used it to store excess hay, broken down tractors and whispered games of Truth or Dare. I often went there to cry privately and more than once built entire, glorious Universes from the dust dancing through stowaway beams of light that barely made it though the floorboards.

It stands way back in the woods of my mind these days. Neither dear nor dreaded. A place holder for all I don't know what to do with. Fragmented songs have taken shelter inside its moldy walls along with so many things You said to me I still can't process.

There were years I visited every day. Resentfully, full of questions and everything I wish I'd said to You or quietly, lovingly bringing bouquets of compassion for Your troubled soul.

For a long time I allowed the woods to take over and swallow it whole. Let the birds and the roaches and all that devours come take their fill and be my eraser. What's past is past and time is far too precious to waste on old stories that may never have been. There was one point I even scrubbed the trail of my memory crystal clean so that in moments of weakness I wouldn't take back to that tired old trail.

Nowadays I let it swim through my thoughts as it will. I see the walls rotting. I smell the dark dust. The paint cracks and crumbles at my feet but it does not touch me as it shimmers in and out of my existence like a distant bird's call that sometimes I hear and sometimes I don't.

You can imagine my surprise when upon awakening this morning I see the path freshly painted. I can only stare. My feet have become best friends with my Soul and it seems to me there are far better places to drink my coffee than worn out houses of our pain.