Paths In The Park

It has been warm outside now for two weeks but it is my first day out. 

To be outside finally after a long three months in. 

To hear the birds singing their songs of love, friendship and happiness. 

To see the squirrels digging up their nuts they had hid before I was away. 

To see the trees have begun to grow their beautiful accessories that will again disappear as the snow begins to make her way in. 

The sun is setting, oh how I missed that feeling. 

The sun is so low that it’s warm enough to keep my checks warm and a smile on my face, despite all the things that just occured.

The sun is taking my breath away, and in a good way, not taking my breath away as in getting the wind knocked out of me like it had been a couple times in that dark place.

I can’t even speak to the people enjoying the spring evening on the park bench. 

Out of words for what it feels like to be outside again. 

Wow what a lovely couple, makes me think back to before, before when me and Lenix would take our weekly walk through a new park. 

Stopping at every bench to really soak in the air from that park because every park had different air, Lenix was convinced of it. Lenix, my sweet Lenix, turned to evil who won’t be able to enjoy the sun anymore. 

Who won’t be able to explore new airs. 

Who won’t ever hear the birds singing their songs of love, friendship and happiness, or the squirrels digging up their nuts they had hid or the trees changing their accessories once fall arrives again. 

Lenix, I wish you could see this couple on the park bench and how happy they look.

I wish you would have seen that could have been us, I wanted that to be us but you just- you were too much. 

Oh is that a path?

It is, I’ll walk this path and hopefully I don’t catch a tic considering I just got rid of one, I never thought I would love a tic but want it to die so badly. 

Lenix told me he hated bugs so how did he become the tic of my life sucking me dry of all things I believed to be love?

Tic’s, deception being their strength, making you think, oh well what a small bug, I can just leave him here and I’ll go my own way so I don’t have to execute him because if he attaches to me it’ll ruin me inside and out. 

This path has no tics that I see, I see a butterfly and a caterpillar though.

It makes me wonder, does that little pillar know that his friend is what he becomes. 

The one he is admiring is whom he turns into if he makes it to the stage of rebirth, renewal. 

Butterflies are seen as such beautiful creatures, but have people really not googled what a butterfly looks like up close? 

They look evil, they look mean, they look worse than a spider. 

Those giant eyes, starring at you, wanting to know everything, and you spill everything you do know only for them to torture you with the truth and scare you into doing bad things and- ok maybe butterflies aren’t evil like he was. 

But he looked as beautiful as a butterfly, the colors that draw you to chase the butterfly, his astonishing features were like a butterflies colors. 

I couldn’t help but chase, but I was chasing a butterfly who was already after me. 

How does that work? 

I chased what chased me and it almost killed me, literally. 

I had no plan, I had no net. 

Was I planning on running forever? 

Well of course not I couldn’t because he ended up locking me in a damn basement for five months. 

FIVE FUCKING MONTHS. 

What if that doesn’t matter? 

What if they don’t see it the way I see it or the way it actually happened, FUCK. 

OH my god, that spider just scared me. 

At least with spiders you know they can be dangerous, you know they may bite you. 

Butterflies? 

Who the hell thinks butterflies can bite you? 

I can just imagine the questioning now, “why did you let him into your home if you had a bad feeling first meeting him? What did you mean when you told him you wish you could run away? Why did you follow him into the basement if he had threatened you before?” 

I have seen shows, I have seen the news, I know how they turn it around to make it look like the victim's fault. 

Was it my fault? 

He did tell me he would do what he needed to, he was aggressive, both bad and good.

Oh man that man was aggressive in the best ways to ple- no! 

He's a monster and they will see that and they will believe me.

I wish I could just be this tree, tall strong, not moving no matter how hard the wind blows, the leafs may sway and they may fall like they do in fall, haha I see what you did there, but no seriously, all that may happen and be true but the tree and its roots stay. 

Well, until someone comes and chops the tree down. 

Are you the lumberjack of my life, well, the now gone lumberjack. 

Were you the Paul Bunyan but gone rogue?

Chopping me down, chop chop chop, right at my HEART! 

HOW? 

HOW COULD HE DO THIS? 

TO ME, TO US, NO NOT HIM, TO ME, HE DID THIS TO ME!! 

ok , it’s ok, just a couple more hours is all I need down this path back to the park and by that time it’ll be dark and I can make my way to- 

.

.

.

To the bus station? 

Pretend this never happened? 

Continue our love for new parks and go smell all the parks around the world and collect their smells for you? 

Pine trees, Palm trees, Oak trees, all the different shaped leaves. 

After it all I still want to protect you. 

I don’t want to speak about how evil you were and how much you destroyed me.

But if I don’t tell the truth, if I run away, what you said will be what they end up believing.

I was the crazy one.

I was the one obsessed and I wanted to escape but with you.

You? 

You didn’t want to go. 

The lies that were so easy for you to tell, so easy to convince others of.

I feel they are so strong they will be believed even with you gone. 

But I can’t just give up, if I did I wouldn’t be here, enjoying this park, this path, these creatures, this air. 

You never appreciate how much you enjoy being able to go outside and enjoy fresh air when times get stressful, until you are no longer able to. 

From now on I will walk down this path even if it rains and the puddles get deep.

I will run my feet in the warm grass with my bare feet and let it tickle my toes even if it is 100 degrees. 

Sit under the tree with a nice book even if ants start to crawl on me, let me be their playground, while I hear the children laughing while swinging in theirs. 

I will go down the slides and make my way across the monkey bars when I take my niece here. 

I will never take advantage of sunshine days or even the rain. 

The park can become my new happy place. 

Will bad memories arise though knowing it’s the first place I chose to go after the most tragic event of my life? 

No no no, it will be a reminder that I made it out alive.

The park will be my happy place.

Woah, it’s getting pretty dark already, time to make my way back to the park and back to reality, the tragic reality that will all be over eventually, hopefully sooner than later. 

I’ll go real slow back down this path though and take in the air, revist my caterpillar friend and I’ll probably see a spider or two, maybe even a tic, but I’m not so scared anymore, I can’t be if I want to enjoy my park again.