the forest

I come to - suddenly.

I catch my breath, as my eyes focus with the new intense light. My chest heaving, I feel my senses sharpen, and I notice an innocent ant crawling between my tiny toes. Wet and cool dirt hold my bare feet gently. I wipe moisture from my cheeks and taste it. The dew is sweet.

How long was I lying here? Was I asleep? Where am I?

I stand slowly and look around.

Trees of deep green canopy every inch of sky there could possibly be. It’s a beauty like I’ve never seen before. A castle built of nature and life.

Pine and wildflowers hug my nose and fill my lungs with the drug of peace. I cannot help but smile.

Where is the ruler of this castle?

I immediately wonder.

I take a few steps forward and spin in a small circle. I almost call out, but I have a sense that she is looking for me too.

A dule of doves flutter above and sail through leaves, carrying my entranced gaze to the right of me.

I gasp quietly as we meet eyes.

There she stands. Her feet in a stream. Her hair highlighted caramel by the only perfect and glittering sunbeams that have peaked through the branches holding us inside. A dove perches on her outreached hand. A chipmunk peaks at me from its comfortable spot on her shoulder. Fish swim in gleeful circles around her submerged ankles.

She is purely beauty. She is holding life. She is redefining home. She is ethereal.

And she is looking right at me.

I don’t know how long I stood there staring, admiring, disbelieving.

Time has gone from this forest. Leaves crackle behind me and I feel a gentle, small nose nudging the back of my knee.

Has this forest been waiting for me? Was I meant to arrive for her?

I look into the beady eyes of a deer, and I am told to go to the ruler waiting in the water.

The forest grows and disappears simultaneously with each step I take closer to her.

The water is warm and calm. The rocks are smooth and velvet.

I cannot breathe.

The animals slink away as I am toe to toe with her.

She smiles with blushed pink lips, and takes my waist into her arms.

Yes, I was meant to arrive for her.

She has been waiting here, and I have been wandering for her.

Her hands encompass my body, my soul, and I feel myself soaking into her.

I lean to rest my cheek to her cheek, and breathe in her skin.

An overwhelming calm flows through my closed eyes and down my neck and across my chest and falls to my stomach and graces my pelvis and weakens my knees and heats my toes and flows back the way it came and again back down my spine and I am met with the perfect realization that wherever I came from is but a memory and here in this forest with her is where I will stay.

Forever.