We walk to it in silence, passing over earthen layers of leaf and twig, never once touching dirt en transit.

Then it escapes vertically from a jungle less than ninety years old.

The Beautiful Monolith.

At one point when the jungle was young, it was an integral bridge of some great scheme of railroads but is now a cement Taj Mahal only undiluted, uninhibited youth could create.
 
Where alabaster paint found in post cards and archival footage had once been, several layers of outsider art, scratchings, bible verses and amateur-drawn genitalia are the monolith’s primer, base and top coat.
 
We walk past two crosses next to the river, one for a young man who had jumped into the three foot deep river from the monolith’s former train tracks, another carries no name but is nailed to a neighboring tree.

An unnaturally yellow tulip lies beneath this cross.
 
At the Monolith’s feet are vines with sprouts of two-or-three leaves each pointing arbitrarily in directions they can grow.

“And my, how they grow,” she whispers.
 
My Sunday dress, a former ivory table cloth of mother’s imagination is consumed by the jungle.

It is not tarnished, but given life. An existence it would not have known under mother’s elbows rained upon by her cigarette’s ashes. It is ‘colored-in’ life, like these are some vanilla pages of little nephew's coloring book.

I try to tell him, but he does not understand, and says that I shouldn't talk about things being “colored' because it makes me sound like a racist.

I laugh, plucking leaves from the tree bearing the unnamed cross and rub them across the Flat of my torso, leaving green streaks across the former tablecloth.
 
He whispers into my ear about taking me to the top of the Monolith. I nod and attempt to rest my chin on his shoulder, but he starts swiftly up the hill.

He tells me to “lose the prissy mary-jane’s” on my feet saying it would be easier to climb without them.
 
I do this, and my bare feet touch the leaves and twigs. The feeling is *******, but in real life, I don’t even know this word exists. We climb, resting halfway on an embankment in one of the Monolith’s Roman arches. The second half of the climb is slightly more difficult, but we reach the top.
 
The tracks are gone, replaced by a coating of gravel, rocks and beer bottles. And then I see it, the reason why the Monolith is beautiful. Two states converge on this spot where I stand, my tablecloth dress begins to take flight as I spread my wings. His mismatched eyes look at me with something close to amusement as he takes out a bright yellow acetate stencil.
 
The cupola of Animal Mansion pokes out from the jungle like my ***** right ****** in this former table cloth.  
 
A thin veil of red paint meets my waist. He gasps and his eyes widen, allowing me to see every individual real life pixel of his unmatched eyes, the hazel left, and the kelly-green right.
 
He mutters some kind of apology I cannot understand.
 
I respond by slipping off the tablecloth. They bounce slightly. You know which ones I speak of…
 
His eyes remain wide as he comes closer to me, telling me that I have to put my clothes back on. In his hands is the crumpled , grass stained, table cloth dress.
 
I ask if this is what he wants. He manages to say “yes” but apparently…not under these circumstances…or at least not on the Beautiful Monolith. I drop to my knees, and am able to unbuckle his belt before he pulls me up by my forearms.
 
My tears make it hard to see what is happening now…I feel my arms pushing him back from me, and then the sound of rocks tumbling out of place.

He is over the ledge now, flying through the portion of damaged railing where no fence stands. His mismatched eyes, the left hazel and right kelly-green stare warmly into mine.

In his hands is the crumpled, grass stained, tablecloth dress.
This, is see perfectly.