Enfolded

The other day I was looking through one of my notebooks and found something I wrote a few months ago, just before we moved from the forest.

I remember writing it, hurting over it, and imagining reading it once I was on the other side of the change; once I was 'forgetful' and 'clean'.

Well now I can tell myself, I have not forgotten.

I have not forgotten at all.

And I wish more than anything I was not clean.

I am as much of this land as a statue long enfolded in moss and vines. It will be difficult to tear me away, to cut me loose.

Roots have latched themselves into my every crevice. I have been weathered too deeply ever to be shaken from them, and I know they will only continue to squeeze at me, erode at me until I crumble, no matter how far away from our home I may go. I am theirs.

I fear the sterility of textured walls. The rumbling of refrigerators. The hiss of a toilet. The asphyxiation of stagnant air which may bring my roots to shrink, dwindle and gray. I’m afraid of forgetting. Of becoming clean.

But I know it’s inevitable.

Though my hands may turn soft once more; and I may, again, find beauty in midnight street lamps humming on a summer night, I will always have a moment of closing my eyes and feeling for my fetters of roots, pulling me closer to the earth, closer to home, to the place where I belong. They will always be there.

Part of me will be forever wild.

Written December 2018