The Visit

I went walking.
They told me fresh air would help.

The trail had no name.
I don’t remember how I found it.

The trees were still  –
not with peace,
but with the effort of holding something in.

The sky above me was the wrong shape.
And the wind,
when it came,
sounded like breathing practiced too long.

It was beautiful.
In the same way an open casket is beautiful.

I stopped at a clearing.
The grass there was too green  –
obscene,
as if it had never died,
not even once.

Something about the pattern of the leaves
made my thoughts slow down.
Not empty.
Just… incorrect.

There was no sound.
Not even the silence birds make
before a storm.

I understood then:
the forest does not love you.
It does not welcome.
It receives.

I left.
Or I believe I did.

The trees here look
familiar now.
But they lean in
a little closer each morning.