I wander through the woods. The day is cool and dry, with a wind blowing that smells of wood and fallen leaves. The bracken has begun to brown, though the Joe pye weed and goldenrod still stand strong.

There is a boulder a little ways out into the woods, those large kind of ones that overlook a hill, not huge but imposing, like those stories of dragons and huge creatures which rest their head down and lay dormant. Its presence feels earth-old, ancient in the same way the moon is.

When I come across it, it is surrounded by tangled textures and shades and heights of green. None but one has dared venture far onto its surface, which has a loose coating of spruce needles and oak leaves. None but one, which I run my fingers over the several types of and marvel at the muted colors and conflicting textures.

The lichen has never been a cowardly being — as old as life on land is, the bond that creates it is one born out of desperation to change things, too. Neither fungi nor plant, lichen is layered in reciprocity- one layer making sugar, one layer collecting minerals, one layer shielding from the hot sun. It has kept the rock company for years while waiting for other species to grow, too — after the ice that covered the world, the lichen was one of the first to return, building itself into tiny niches in the rock with no shelter against the harsh snow or burning sun. In the face of a barren world, the lichen was the one to began to recolor it, one small textured leaf at a time, sending oxygen into the air for the birds and squirrels. The lichen, whose layers love each other.

I lean against the huge maple tree that overhangs the rock and observe. Moss, thick and lush, has began to crawl over the stony surface, vibrant green against the muted tones of lichen. Pine needles and fallen leaves have layered on the textured lichen for years now on a rock which is no longer barren. At one corner of the rock, where the land curves up to meet it, ferns have begun to climb onto the rock, too, which has topcoat of moss and lichen and leaves just thick enough for their roots. After a couple of years, the lichen will only be visible in patches, suffocating under its legacy of lushness. It must love the world deeply, able to let itself secede into the background so its gift can sustain us all. A creature born in times of hardship — on the rock, lichen is no longer needed.

I wonder for a second if the lichen loves us, and then I push away that thought, because we are just as a part of world it knows as the deer and foxes. But I know for a fact that we have not loved the lichen back, with our machines and poisoned water and smog-filled air. More than that, we have neglected to listen to the lichen’s lessons, which whisper to us about the power of community, partnership, and reciprocity. It has showed us so clearly how a simple love can change the world. If we listen, would our fate be not as inevitable as it seems to be? If we learned to do as the lichen does, to work together until the world we live in is fit for all those that come after?

I suspect the lichen will outlive us all, anyway. In the barren world we leave behind, the lichen will grow over our polished caskets and grave stones long after our bodies have rotted.

I want you to kiss me until my lips bruise and pucker and purple and all I can taste is the inside of your mouth. I’m not sure if the girls you’ve been with before touched your waist like I do but I want you to know that it is such a beautiful part of you and I wish I had more time to tell you that. Your skin is fine, believe me—I’d lick the tears off of your cheeks if you let me. And this all sounds crazy, and I know it’s far too fast, but you are lovely and good, and I have to make a considerable effort most days not to think of you, lest I lose my mind. I need to focus on other, more sensible things. Unlike you, and your pretty eyes and long-fingered hands and the way your chest moves beneath the back of my head. There will be a time when I cannot see you in person and we have lived it recently but the one day I am allowed for the next few months is the kind of aphrodisiac that I’m sure Dionysus gorged himself on. I hope you’ve been counting down days the same way I have—all I’ve been able to think of for the past hour is the sloping skin that connects your shoulders to your collarbone. You asked me a few weeks ago what music I enjoyed listening to and up until that point I would have said “Hip-Hop, Pop, some Jazz and R&B,” but now my answer is just “your voice. Yeah, Yours.” Capital Y, because I am drowning in you and cannot touch you. I see a smile that looks like yours and my palms ache. You send me silly pictures and funny little messages, and I feast on all of them, lick my lips clean, and feel the chasm that contains my hunger for you tremble and deepen. You think in a way I don’t really understand—men are here, women there, your grasp of things unyielding—but I have made headway in changing your mind, pressing my thumbs into your weak spots and making jokes to ease the tension when you wince. You are incredible and difficult and so kind it astounds me, and losing the knowledge of your body so close is going to pull threads in my brain apart, but waiting for more time is worth it. I hope you read the book I bought you and I hope it makes you cry on the plane. I am sadistic, sometimes, but your pain will only match mine, and your fingertips on my penciling will be another way for me to feel you when you are away. There are words I cannot say, yet, but they are in there. On the pages, explicitly, written by someone else and underlined by me, but also in the gesture itself. We both know what they are. I hope, I know, that you think them, too. 

"I have little left in myself -- I must have you. The world may laugh --may call me absurd, selfish --but it does not signify. My very soul demands you; it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame." --Jane Eyre. 

Don’t. 

Don’t you know? 

Don’t you know what I mean? 

Don’t you know what I mean when I say 

something isn’t right something isn’t right something isn’t right 

Don’t you know what I mean 

when I say the sky is falling the ground is breaking the trees can’t breathe 

when I say please, don’t. 

Don’t you know? 

Please.