Whispering Pines

A toilsome cloud has settled on the valley floor, not even the concrete can defy its weight. Gravity pulls it down and it seeps in through the cracks, swelling beneath the surace where I cannot see, but I know. I know it's there because I can feel it underfoot, shifting and writhing like a wounded soul, desperately trying to escape.

Escape is just a luxury and I am much, too small to set it free.

A new chapter is written and I realize now that this abandoned town is just smoke and mirrors. This place I grew up in, this place I've never left and once thought to be beautiful, has gone cold. There is no beauty here, no sun to warm the blacktop or make the wildflowers grow, because beauty comes from within and mine was lost long ago.

Odious, is my aching heart and it withers in the dark.

You cannot burn a bridge that was never built and you cannot harvest a field of root and stone. When the ancient pines fall, The Bald Mountain will keep it a quietly hidden secret, watching helplessly as The Green River carves a destructive path through the valley. By then, I will have burned away the last of love's desperate hope, and I will let the waters cover me.

I refuse to call it beautiful.
I won't.