Alive in a Dead Life

     I feel alive when the sky breathes, when the mountains I ascend hug the horizon and fill every crevasse in my fractured heart, when the smell of decaying leaves shoves it way up my nose, when I feel the mud beneath my feet as I sprint through waterlogged fields barefoot, when the rough bark scrapes my hands as I climb the highest trees in the forest, when the water in the lake splashes my face and onto my boat, when the rock I step on in the river rolls and topples me into the freezing water, when I say screw expectations because nature doesn’t care who I am.
    I feel alive when I scream along to songs in the car with my friends, when we drink coffee and eat apple pie with spoons in the dreary moonlight of ten p.m, when we play music horribly together at the town cafe, when we stuff our faces with powdered donuts and dare each other to drink stomach-turning concoctions, when we lose the volleyball game in gym and laugh while doing it, when we make so many bad puns in band our teacher tells us to stop, when we make pillow forts and play Just Dance within the same ungodly hour, when we are just ourselves with each other.