Start
where my world had ended
ten years have passed
but the sights
sounds
feel hasn’t bended.
I still can picture
like a photograph of the past
the tree that marked
the step that was my last
before the world disappeared
into the land of unknown
at the age of seven
in the woods
all alone

My mind froze
like the ground in October
as I gazed out past my tree
my line
the Pacific to a kid who was trembling all over.
I turned from the place that had been told to me
as being the limit
of where I was allowed to be.
The queen
the leader
the one I call Mom
the one who I’d been trained
to think had known all
requested,
NO
commanded,
that “I shall not pass”
but she was the Balrog
and I was Legolas.
But still,
I was scared
trained to trust in the words
but oh
how my heart ached and how it yearned
to be set free
from these boundaries on Earth.
In the mind of a child
Up
up
was away
so I began to climb
And I'll climb to this day.
From the branches I’d gaze
out across the fields
and the trees and the blades
Weren't  green
they were black
as if cast in a shadow
about to attack.
I screamed, inside
outside I fell,
from the branches
of my mind
no rope
not a repel.
Fast was the descent
for I caught myself
on the truth of the words I had heard from
no one else.
They were mine,
not the queen’s
not the leader’s
not my mom’s
and the fact that they weren’t
made them seem twice as strong.
No field could haunt me,
No field could do harm
so as I envisioned prior
I began my journeyed on.
Past the tree,
past the line,
past the Pacific of my mind
and into the darkness
that was only black through the blinds.
For all I had to do was draw them back
and then i could see,
that past my line,
my Pacific,
there was nothing but more trees.

So now,
seventeen
I journey back to the place
at the edge of my ocean
that is an ocean I now crave.
The point past the tree,
past the line I had drawn
and into the green,
and the light
and the thoughts
that now come to mind
not of fear or
of doubt
but of joy
and of fun
and I can’t live without
the knowledge that the tree
that has meant so much to me
instead of a line
is
an ocean,
My sea.