My friend, August 2011

She was shaken, barely a memory left laying.
Yet something glimmered near the edge of the forest.
Something bright, a break.
A break in the darkness,
beckoning: AWAKE!
"But I can't!" said the girl,
my knees are cut open!
my hands, they foresake!
and my heart, you see, it has broken!
I don't think to the edge I can make it",
but wait...
The light creeped closer, slowly
so slowly she believed nothing was coming.
Head bowed, hanging lowly.
A growl! Her heart sank
As the growl grew louder
her heart jumped!
And louder,
she coiled up
And louder
She spoke
"Please I am afraid do not kill me!"
Silence.
She looked up,
standing over her under the suns rays
A Bear staring into her through his gaze;
the most beautiful she'd ever had memory of
"He's come to carry you to the edge"
"But what's at the edge?" the girl said.
"Nevermind, make haste!"
"But what if..."
"Would you rather follow the forgotten?
Stay lost in the forest?
Stay long enough to die?
Long enough to be erased?"
"NO! I want to live! I am not so battered
that I can not stand
that I can not walk
I can not, will not go back to that place!
Get me out of here!"
She grasped on to the Bear,
lightly...then tighter.
She climbed to his shoulders,
and slowly he paced forward
Then quicker, to the edge they raced!
As they broke through the final brush,
He stopped short, knelt down to a rock
set her down, then stood back up.
"Where are you going?"
But he said nothing. He kept going.
"But I'm worried, what if..."
What if. She saw him enter back into the forest
Not knowing or having said
how he walked with such grace, and carried her.
So for that she keeps going,
she turns and runs through the bright lit field.
Tears rolling, dirt on her elbows and knees
she runs faster, FASTER
for Gods sake!
Never again let anything but he enter,
he who Picked you up when you were left there
rotting, in disgrace.
The voice who pushed you, slapped you
made you wake up to this moment,
that life awaits.
So maybe some day she will see
that Bear again
and thank him, and love him the same
and maybe not,
maybe never
but for God's sake
she won't stop running forward.
She won't forfeit this race.