Lovely Cup

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     Warm August wind really has a way of making you feel exposed. Like a person who understands you fully, knows the freckles dusted on your nose, the length of you eyelashes. The wind knows your secrets without your confession or even your consent. It knows the fears in your heart that you thought you'd buried deep below layers of thought and emotion. The wind is like a long lost best friend that grew apart like roots of a tree, once together now barely in touching distance. Now just strangers. From my little hand built summer swing hidden off a path in the woods by my home, I stood and let the air breathe through my bones and it made me feel hollow and empty. It echoed through my veins and limbs, just like my name.

     The swing set was over a small creek, facing the mountains and a nearby train-track. It was hanging off an old oak tree, shaped by the hands of time, and was over a slight hill. The whole area was covered in curved trees, which caused both sunsets and star-gazing to be something you'd never really forget, something beautiful enough to choose as your final thought, on your death bed. I would never share this spot though, even with someone who knew me like a used country dirt path. Not even a girl as close to me as Lilliah, who I'd known for two years now. It was only the wind and I. We had an unspoken agreement, only us. Nobody else could enter into the little space of such a good thing in life.

     The sunset now crossing the mountain's edge was reflecting the water of the flowing creek, and  though I didn't mind staying a bit longer, I knew I was already in enough trouble and I better not cause more now by getting home past dark. Sure I knew that, but I didn't want to believe it. I took a deep breath, inhaling the stars poking holes in the sky, inhaling the drying leaves and grass, inhaled the silence. Breathing out a little goodbye to the wind and creek and sky and mountains, everything to give me another moment of this place, I threw my head back and caught my hair in a pony-tail,  walking a few steps off the worn trail leading to my aging home. It had to happen sometime. In the last second I looked back at my crooked swing-set, trying to decide on an excuse for being late for a third night in a row. It was a good thing that the wind made it easy to slip out a different lie every time.

*Song is Lovely Cup by Grouplove

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