Squaw Peak

It was in the silence, or near silence

that she thought too much. Thinking about the past,

About a thousand things she’s already thought about.

But all her memories now just kind of hurt

Every corner, filled with something 

she didn’t want to remember or wanted to and couldn’t.

She would breath hard when she hiked.

But didn’t seem to mind it, being alone

She liked the pain, the push.

Feeling herself and the wind, 

Carve through her and the aspens like one in the same

atop a growing mountain.

First she thought about someone unmentionable, 

though she’d told herself all too many time she didn’t care anymore, 

even she knew she was lying.

The right songs and sounds triggered a cascade of memories;

Blonde curly hair dripping with the water of all those summer trips to the river.

Something that would never feel right again.

Empty promises left unkempt.

Then Africa; the heat, the drums, the dust and the eyes, so many beautiful eyes.

There was too much to put into words,

Too much love, too much lost, too much to ever have again, 

Too many faces she feared she’d forget,

sometimes she’d retrace them in her mind and hold on to those moments so tightly

that she’d feel them disintegrating in the passing of time.

She longed for more places, untouched by selfish hands

And unmarred by the passing of time.

Though she felt the blame lay solely on herself,

Having been desperate enough to share and foolish enough to think she could keep them,

Immortalized like a snow globe.

The worst part was how she still missed them.

Places that even were she to return to now,

She’d miss them.

Step after step of climbing, using the scenery as the backdrop of her thoughts.

She drew upon the precipice of something that felt all too glorious for the living.

The peak.

A girl,

Who could see just about everything.

She’d wanted to keep it,

To swallow it,

But even she knew better.

She’d come further than she thought.

But still, she wished.

Sunk into her vanity of wanting to have been more.

Coming down was always harder, but this time most especially.

Clouds rolled and collapsed on top of one another.

A whip cracked overhead and light splayed across a backdrop of murky gray.

Where she once walked on ground, she trudged through water.

Enough she felt she’d drown.

She didn’t blame anyone else,

It was her, she craved more, more than her share.

It had been good, satisfying even, all she could’ve wanted.

It was when the moments had passed that it haunted her.

A longing for that first taste a second time.

Now she had wet shoes and dried mud crusted to her bare legs.

But the clouds escaped and the muddied path became bearable enough to reach the bottom,

the family that awaited her and all her stupidity.

She knew she’d been greedy to go alone, wanting something pure.

But she was happy not to be alone this time.

There was a richness and purity about it all, 

but retrospect cast a shadow across those kinds of things.

She wanted to live in the moment,

But always found herself living

A little late. 

Driving in the car at night gave her a similar feeling.

When the mountains were too cold to climb, but she felt the withdrawals,

She’d turn down the winding streets and attempt to swallow it up,

the moment,

the alone.

The unmentionable one is gone now and Africa was finally just memories.

She felt the silence again and knew she needed something new, something more.

If not she would have to think about the quiet.

Too quiet.

Maybe she’d take a hike.