Autumn mesmerizes me now. There is something about it that is beautiful and pleasant, something I had never taken the time to realize before. Not until I was thrust into it under a delightful circumstance.
I remember when fall was simply a time for everything to die, as the scent of slow decay filled the air with it’s ghastly, rotting, sour stench. The smell was exceedingly nauseating this year. The frost came early, killing everything in its wake. Leaves fell to the ground like poisonous, green rain, my garden was demolished, and the petals of my once luscious roses melted from their thorny stalks. I recall attempting to preserve my sanity by collecting what was left of the crimson fragments of such beautiful life, clinging to the rocks below with desperation, frozen in time as ice seized the scenery in a winter like hell. For all I cared; everything I lived for had been devoured in one night. Everything I had worked so hard for, everything I had spent my time and love on; had died in my arms. Everything. Dead. My life was shattered, and I couldn’t get the horrific aroma out of my head. I continued on with my life, empty, disoriented, drained, distanced, and suddenly alone. Not being able to shake the melancholy from me. Feeling nothing but absolute defeat and failure. The only thing that was still worth living for was in itself no longer living. My purpose was gone.
I thought I had hated the fall, so desperately, so passionately. It almost ended my life. My absurd problems were not real problems to the rest of the world. No one cared, and why should they have? Not only did I break two hearts in such a short time, but I had also dragged all of my beloved friends into the drama. I felt lower for burdening them…
I now bring myself to smile at the thought of bare trees. Orange and yellow leaves littering the ground with their brilliant colors. Hearing the river, the birds chirping gleefully, and the cute little scurry of squirrels in the trees…
Then there is him. Nothing compares to the blissful sound of his voice when he talks to me. The words are quiet and calming, soothing and reassuring. It’s not often that I get to hear a word spoken from him that is not first lured out. The stories he tells play through my head like carefully directed movies. I never forget them, and I don’t understand why; I forget everything else. He gave me a new purpose to continue living. He became my purpose.
We walked for hours. The path twisted and swayed, yet we hardly kept to the road we were meant to walk upon. We forged our own path, determined to adventure beyond. Occasionally on our almost silent journey we were confronted by society, hardly receiving as much as a glance and the rare “hello”. We avoided humanity as much as possible.
Our main goal was to ‘hang out’ and talk. The entire time I feared he would want me to talk about my past. I thought I would have been ready, I told myself I would be, but for some reason every time it was even remotely brought up; I would get a lump in my throat and my mind would go blank. So sure he would notice; I avoided looking at him. He reassured me with his gentle words. It still didn’t feel right to not answer his questions.
As much as we joked, and brought up small talk, neither of us seemed to know what we wanted to say, nor did we know what we wanted to do. Even when we stopped walking, the words didn’t flow as smoothly as I had hoped they would. I was occupied by the sound of the running water below, overwhelmed by the overhanging knowledge that there was a gap between us. We could have spent the whole day there without moving, without speaking, without breathing, and without so much as touching the other. We were in our on separate worlds. On separate banks of the same body of water, yet right next to each other at the same time.
This went on for a time and I started to become painfully alone. Vexed by the sight of his solemn, empty eyes. My heart was beating slowly, begging for him to touch me, desperately trying to breathe him all in, unsuccessfully attempting to start logical conversation. We were silent. My mind seemed to have stopped forming words all together. Time was still ticking forever forward, yet it also seemed to stop altogether. Time is our greatest enemy.
The wind is our second. It had however, in that moment, died down completely, but the temperature dropped with the setting sun. My only escape from this hell I had walked into was when we started shaking from the cold. I moved in closer to warm him, in turn, hoping to also warm myself, but he didn’t move. His hands were colder than arctic ice, a feeling I had become accustomed to, and truthfully have grown to like. I made us leave that place, I wanted more than the gentle ripple of the water, more than the soft sounds of our breath in the still air, more than the setting sun and orange leaves as scenery. I wanted our spell of depression to be broken; that silence we were encased in to be lifted. I wanted to see him smile again. I wanted to be in his arms. I wanted him to stop shaking from the cold he is not accustomed to.
On our walk back a helicopter zoomed overhead. To my surprise and joy, he came up with another brilliant story. Something about the scenario made me feel as though we were in the movie, carefully acting out the parts as he spoke. We were running from the authorities, wanted people lost in the woods, even though we knew civilization was no more than a glance away. He went on and on; I enjoyed every moment of it. Then suddenly, for the first time, and whether or not it was simply in the context of the story, he called me ‘babe’. For that short moment, not knowing why, I felt overjoyed, but I felt it was only part of the story. I somehow knew he didn’t mean it. I was still shaking madly, bidding my self to remain still, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders; he held me close as we walked. The leaves beneath us snapped and crinkled. His words floating in the air like fireflies.
Across the bridge we seemed to be leaving a whole world behind us. A world of bright colors, death, and the silent screams of my desires left unattended. I knew not of the new world we were entering, though it was the same area we had come from just hours before, though it was the exact same scenery as everywhere else. Words still stopped in our throats, refusing to come forth in the silence.
I had lost my fear by being with him. Usually when a dog walks by my heart jumps and my hands clench tightly, but when I hold his hand and I have him next to me I pay no attention to their existence, or to my own pointless fear, my silly phobias.
His car was warm and inviting. The sun was still setting, spewing forth an array of florescent colors, cascading the sky with the fallen leaves themselves. As time went on, more and more people started to go home, and the sun was dissolving into the earth beside us. The sky became veiled in ebony as we spoke. Our curse was lifted, and the silence melted with the colors.
It was dark by the time our words stopped flowing, and our minds seized to form the beautiful music of our mingling voices. Within the darkness I had leaned in closer to him, for I could not handle to be so far away. His arm was wrapped around me, caressing my face and with compassion I had never before known. I felt like a kitten on the verge of purring.
When I peered at his face he leaned in closer to me. The air grew thick and heavy making it hard for me to breathe. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t move, it was dark, and I was staring at the one I love so dearly. I closed my eyes and felt his soft, warm lips envelope my own. The kiss was passionate, and truthfully, far more than I expected. He seemed to know what he was doing, leading me, taking over. The more we kissed the faster my heart pumped, and I’d forget to breathe altogether. We’d stop at times to just sit there holding each other, we’d talk, and he would continue to stroke my cheek. With every brush of his hand I fell deeper into his spell.
I was a pre-broken marionette hiding my face behind fields of summer wheat, but my new puppet master brushed back my bangs, revealing the face of a shattered child. With unspoken words he was capable of deleting the past. I’m safe with him. I know I’m safe.
Everything was broken with a phone call; first for him, then for me. We had to leave, but I didn’t want to be away from him. I didn’t want to endure being on opposite sides of town; it feels as though an entire galaxy separates us.
I love him more than the world knows, and more than anyone can understand.
He is my love.
He is my life.
…