I Just Want Something I Don't Want

There's a rope swing

all the way back in the woods.

I forgot it was there.

I took you there,

do you remember?

Yesterday we read quotes my mother kept from when my sister and I were little.

I think I was better then...

don't you?

I loved everything,

and was afraid of the things in the dark.

The world wears me down.

I cried today when she was teasing you

because she teased us that way too.

Do you remember

the rainy day 

we slept in late and saw the beginning of that really sad movie that we never watched the end of?

I do.

I remember how you felt in my arms.

I remember dragging you out to the rope swing and eating leftover pad-thai. 

Here's a secret, sometimes I read a sad book and then

read it again

up until the point in the middle where everyone is happy

and then I stop

like the story ended there. 

I used to have my legs so firmly planted in myself.

I did not know who Mariah Carey was.

I did not know how to write a five paragraph essay,

or how to do long division,

or how to disguise my tears with a well worn song before I pull up into the driveway.

But I knew what was right. 

As we looked through the baby quotes

we found one where my sister said 

"I just want something I don't want".

How wise is this, coming from a two year old? 

How humane? 

I just want something that I don't want.

Didn't you also tell me

"Everyone loves someone else more than they love you"?

Don't I hate the nights when I wake up and find I only dreamed you love me again? 

Now I run and get lost.

Find myself wandering into the woods,

and rediscovering the rope swing

that sways my body

and I don't have to be alone anymore 

because I am a wild thing again. 

The trees, they are still here.

The trees breathe in the world

and love in ways we cannot hope to.

The trees rock me back to that little girl,

and forward...

When I was six I realized my own mortality,

and lay awake screaming on the floor every night

because I would cease to exist. 

I don't scream on the floor anymore, 

but that is all that has changed.

The trees don't let me forget.

They help me remember:

my kitten heart

lives in a world built on the backs of gentle giants.

They who make it possible for my every breath.

I am small.

I just want something I don't want.

It is not all my fault.