Hannah Myers / 10 (BARE staff)
I walk into the Ohio feather-leafed forest,
my feet crackling with each step,
the dead bodies of old green
lying on top of moist-gut soil
ready to be decomposed
into dirt.
I look to the trees,
bare sticks poking from the soil,
their roots tangled between more roots,
spiraling out beneath the world
infinitely stretching to nothing.
I lean down and scoop
dirt into my hands,
and take a sour winter breath —
the remnants of summer —
and hear memory laugh.
I inhale my childhood once again,
and I finally let my body relax.
One day the trees will bud again
and the flowers will bloom from the mud,
but never again will I feel the same
as I did when I was young.