He felt the cold as easily as if he had plunged through ice...the wind whipping through the forest in a constant howl that seemed to pull the stars even closer to the ground. The black limbs of trees blotted them out now and again, blacker than the night, and every so often he saw the low orange smile of a fingernail moon.
It had been some time since he had made the trek, the crunch of dead leaves reminding him of that distant frame...a time when things had been better, much better. Much brighter, cleaner. Fresh scrubbed.
Now it felt and tasted gray. It was wrought out. And as his ears burned in the cold and his nose slightly ran in the wind he felt like he was filled with coal. Cut open he would crumble tiny black ashes.
Heartbreakingly distant...
He ran his fingers over the cuts he had made in the tree, simple childish renderings...what you do when a heart is full...and though he could have written her with pen and paper, or god forbid even send her a text, he had chosen to find a tree with a view that might simply be as beautiful as the view she provided. He had never told her, never shown her. In the cold of the dark he wished he might have, but then scoffed. She wouldn't have troubled herself to see. She had cut into him with a dull blade and made her own initials. Only her own.
Exquisitely aching...
The cold filled his lungs with tiny little shears, slicing while inhaling and his eyes watered as the wind seemed to cascade around him. Low white stars burnt cold pale colors and he thought the sky looked dead, pale, death-bloom. He hadn't been here for so long. Had almost forgotten how to get here. Had hoped he might not find it. Like hearing a distant song in an empty house and not knowing what room it was playing in...he could still hear her, could still feel...he just wasn't sure what it was. And by finding the tree, he knew he would always hear it and know where it was.
He exhaled, the plume of gray light against the blackened forest. He took off his glove and with the index finger he traced the letters on the tree. He saw her name, and then her face and then she was in front of him and she was reaching out and her eyes were closing in a kiss and he could feel the collapse of her against him.
Unknowingly abandoned...
His finger traced the last of the letters...his hand red and stinging in the cold. The moon had set. He shivered and put on his glove.
He patted the tree once, then again. He looked up at the length of it, craning his neck upwards until the trunk merged darkly with the sky. He looked once more out towards the view, a black blank space before him.
With a half-smile from a flashbulb memory, he turned and started his way back, the wind pushing him and the headlights beckoning him to return.
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