An Afternoon In Spring

There are moments when you cast everything aside, you slip on your shoes and just as silently slip out of the door, turning up the dusty track and pressing into the wind. As you pass the trees they whisper above your head and your ponytail is sardonically tossed in the zephyr, tugging painfully on your darkened mind. Somehow you can’t remember the last time your hair bounced and clung and pricked your eyes, or the last time you noticed, or the last time you cared. But you press on, ignoring the murmurs and the leaves spiraling in your path and the breeze drags across your burning face, biting as it goes. A warm trail carves a silvery path from eye to ear where it nestles and bubbles and you’re not sure whether the gushing air has drawn it or your soul has granted it freedom. Your footsteps fall heavily on the stony path and your shaky breaths grow deeper and more urgent and you’re not sure whether the path below you is growing steeper or the path before you is getting harder. But you feel that you can't go further. You seek solace in the evening solitude as you drop to the ground, the grass tickling your ears as the tear escapes once more and slides down the greenness to silently thud onto the ground below. Somewhere a bird cries out but you cannot hear it in the roaring silence. And you lie there, single clouds skidding high above you and you stare. A distant voice, a dog barks, you press yourself deeper into the undergrowth. And you’re terrified they’ll see you. Or that maybe they won’t. And you curl up tightly as the breeze chills your spine. And you lie there. And you lie there. And you lie.