Escape

Well, my birthday turned out to be something that rendered the need for creative escape. Granted, the evening was a whole lot better than the morning. But I'm happy it's over... So here goes. It's all straight from my mind so it may be a little crazy.

I feel a streak of lavender and blue arching up through my forehead, and it sounds like a chime and feels like singing all out. I don't know how to explain it properly, but that-- thing, streak, sensation, thought-- is my current state of mind. Maybe even state of being. There is a wild thing in my heart, serpentine and lost and tragic but also innocent and joyful. All at once. It moves with the rhythm of these things and slowly its twisting turns into a dance for all that's wrong in the world to be made right. At this moment I am greatly lacking in rational thought, which is unlike me. I am emotion, energy, wishing dearly for a canvas to splash myself upon but fearing the consequences of attaching myself to the tangible world. So alone in a psychic vacuum I sit, writhing and dancing and singing with colour. What's that I feel? It's a scream. It's in the back of my mind, but also in my chest. I can almost hear it, the whistling of icy wind as I scream as loud as I possibly can and collapse into the snow. I move now into a place that exists in the real world, but that I will probably never see again. It's so well hidden; I doubt many people have seen it. I can hear the waterfall, feel the icy autumn water run over my feet, into my sneakers, drenching my jeans. I can feel as my palms wrap around tree roots, trying hard to keep from falling towards injury or death. Once safe, I feel the soft ground under my feet as I walk along the edge of the stream. I see the familiar rocks where I can hop across so as to find higher ground. Then the next waterfall. So much shorter; probably less that 12 feet in height. I can't remember the height as clearly; I only saw this part a couple of times. I remember walking carelessly through the stream here, for it's shallow here, though slippery. I remember the rocks on the side, How slippery they were, almost falling. I still wish I'd found a way further. For about a year that waterfall was my lifeline. I re experience the rushing water, remember bringing the dogs with me. They would've found help if anything had happened to me.
Now I go to a beach. I need its warmth. Hot, soft sand, molding under my bare feet as I walk, the sun bathing me in molten heat. I can see the ocean a bit, but right now I smell it more than anything, salt water slipping through the air into my nostrils and pasting itself into the background of memory.
There's another happy place I had when I was young, that I loved. It started one year on the Fourth of July when family friends, my mother and I were on vacation and went to see fireworks. We were seated on a big cement slab that stuck out into the ocean. I remember closing my eyes for awhile and just listening to the fireworks and the water, feeling the breeze. And then I was on my Rock. In the middle of the ocean, completely separate from other humans. The rock is big and dark and the ocean is always stormy. Overhead is booming thunder, the sort that shakes your very core. Rough waves throw mist onto me as I lay on my stomach, listening to the beauty of the storm. And that is the whole magic of the rock. For awhile I added a cave which led down into a magical world where the greenery itself emitted bright light, and faeries and small animals- my only sources of conversation- lived and danced merrily about, always joyful simply to be in that magical world. But somehow even with that cave I always took time to step out onto the exterior of the rock and enjoy the full moon, the sound of thunder rolling in the distance, the feeling of sea spray on my skin.