Maybe it could have started on a Brooklyn rooftop,
on the first warm spring night of the year.
The Appleseed Cast playing the soundtrack of our story,
as we walked the Williamsburg streets in the early morning hours.
Bewitched by the atmosphere, tempted by the possibility of a cure, desperate to reconnect with the roots of the sapling I abandoned-I should have trusted your judgment that night.
Maybe it could have started on an second hand couch,
on a brisk, overcast winter night.
Weezer playing the soundtrack of our story
as we walked the New Paltz street side by side.
Making room for the tension between us, yet never knowing how to navigate my self-imposed obstacles.
I was desperate for you to take my hand as we trudged up the hill to my car. Grateful for the diversion of coffee, that prolonged our only unsupervised night together.
So many opportunities presented themselves to diverge from a plan that was never my own. In hindsight, I confused deliverance with distraction. I frequently haul myself away from the recollections of my missed opportunities. There are infinite versions of myself that I will never know.
And in the end, it started where it began. With a contradiction and an accusation.
Empty promises and dangerously false hope played the soundtrack of my story, as I walked the aisles far from emptyhanded.
And the tree I spent years searching for was suddenly a vast forest before my eyes.
The universe’s final attempt to reclaim me, my mind’s ferocious attempt to reclaim itself. I walked into the familiarity of darkened woods. Finally, the lure was not for love, but for strength I lost in the decade of captivity.
No longer a victim, no longer blinded, no longer weakened.
No longer bound by the what ifs.
