Clearing
We had spent our lives running, it seemed, to this outstretched clearing in the forest. No birds sang there, inside the trees. Simply crawling beetles burrowed into our socks, bug bites littering our skin. But we could hear them, those bright songs upon slender beaks. So we ran.
When we reached the clearing, it did not feel true. We kept looking for those bugs, yet only the bites persisted. As they faded, we found ourselves watching our skin, searching for that strange old sensation that we had woven into our bones. Nothing came, that fire of disobedience, the fear of taking too long. We were sacrificing ourselves to warnings of the past, to dangers that no longer lurked behind the trunks. We saw all now as it was in these fresh grasses. The shimmering creek, the burbling creasing over smoothed stones. The odd new animals that eyed us from far away, their pelts glistening under the warmth of the sun. The breeze, finally the breeze brushing away days of sorrow. And the bird song, oh the bird song.
How sweet it sounded outside of the forest. For it was everything to be true to our ragged ears, just as it was in our fondest dreams. They sang us to sleep, under the pinpricks of stars dancing into stories. They woke us at the sun’s zenith, time allusion to our whims. They sang to us during our days of dance and storytelling, new memories to be formed, songs to sway alongside them.
The realization of our arrival came sudden, crashing as sheets of summer storms across the soil. We were here, it seemed, unfamiliar in this new soft place. But we were us, finally. We were safe.
Kaiser Kelly is a freshman at SUNY Purchase, where they are studying creative writing with a track in narrative work. They enjoy writing horror and literary fiction.