Ill-Nurtured Nature

They left me in the woods…a simple game of hide and seek, only there was no reciprocation.
I’ve been here for so long, the imprints my knees have made are now pools of mud from the
rainstorm that swept through about three hours ago. My shirt has been reduced to torn fabric
after an encounter with a patch of thorn bushes. My left shoe is missing, off flirting with some
quagmire a mile or so back. There’s no ethnicity in the woods like there is where I’m from. The
blood from cuts and dried, caked mud has become my ethnicity; skin purpled from the cold
night air.
              But I’m beginning to forgive my so-called friends for abandoning me. I’ve made new
friends; the hole-filled tree leaves, those holes in the shape of abstruse faces, making no
remarks and passing no judgment. Ready to superimpose any characteristic I wish to attach to
them.
              How the traffic lights from the cluttered suburban streets I’m used to, pale in
comparison to the stars lighting the night sky. Constellations replacing television as
entertainment for me. There’s a marriage between my breaths, which dance in short, scratchy
form, and the thoughts of contentment, which parade through my brain. No exact thoughts,
mind you, more like Zen. An absence of any real material, thoughts about thought, about
absolutely nothing and everything.
             One would expect me to grow hungry, but only, I do not hunger. I am not confined to
one corporeal existence. I am many, a shared experience. The reason I am not sought is
because no one knew to find me. They left, exchanging awe and wonder and humility, for
safety, lies, and unnatural construction. Both physical and immaterial. I am forfeiture. The
“Let’s leave it behind, it isn’t worth it, we can always get another.”
             But they don’t understand. They can’t. True, I am always waiting…willing to accept with
open arms and forgiveness, but they don’t seem to make any concession, instead, they want to
make this thing called progress. Towers stand and sidewalks sleep in my earthen bed in place of
me. Becoming a mistress to the soil and minerals. What hurts most is that the material these
new obstructions are made from, come from me and the rest of nature. As if we weren’t good
enough as we were. We wait patiently, trying to understand how to get you back. You live in
your towns, with your possessions, for that’s where they live. Living a very narrow existence in
them, and having the gall to call it experience. We keep your shared experiences and discarded
goods in our belly, in hopes of luring you back, just wishing to experience real experience with
you again.