the garden

Of course the garden would be a lush maze full of beauty. Why wouldn’t it be? Everything about the house was perfect.

It would only be natural for him to have a perfect garden too. Not that he would tend to it, or even plan it for that matter.

But it would be perfect.

I nodded to him, excitement filling my being, when he mentioned he would need to use the restroom.

Alone, in the garden.

I squeezed between the two boxwood balls that decorated the beginning of a path. They were huge, probably centuries old, and larger than me. The gardener would need a ladder just to trim the tops.

The leaves pricked my arms gently, allowing me to pass through.

The pebbles beneath my feet crunched delightfully. I gave a quick glance behind me, back to the fountain where he had left, but there was no one. Surely I had time to explore quickly.

Succulents grew in large amber colored pots, their thick bodies filling spaces between high hedges and red flowering poppies.

Clara – Part 1

The trees surround me.  Of course they know how I feel, how I still hope. 

Everything about my past seems so simple to them – nothing toxic, nothing harmful.  To the trees, my past is simply that… the past.  It doesn’t hold merit on today, it doesn’t breathe into my soul like the trees do. 

If only I could forget.

My hair is white.  It is thick and it blows with the wind, tapping lightly on my back and brushing my shoulders. 

I look at myself.  Not in a mirror, there are not any mirrors in the forest.  But I just look, take a step away and see myself.  My hands clenched into fists.  I breathe into my hands and release them, already feeling better with the tension through my arms gone. 

What if they aren’t here anymore?  What if they were never here?