A Flower in a Field

charlotte

Gently setting my pen down as I looked out the window, my mind wouldn't stop from racing. I focused on the speed of the car moving, and counted every blade of grass on the ground. I measured the height of every tree in my mind; I sang along with the song on the radio. Anything to distract me; to take my mind off of the emotions that couldn't seem to be contained inside my mind. As I looked back down at my poetry journal, I felt a small sigh forming in my lungs. My eyes couldn't seem to focus enough to read the words on the page; my body felt numb and blind with anxiety.

I need to find a way to control myself.

The car had finally cleared the forest, and when I looked out the window at what used to be endless rows of trees varying in size and type became a vastly open field. The sun was now extremely bright and bordered on blinding, which made me feel oddly exposed.

There are no secrets that provide shade. Just tall grass and the shining sun.

My light brown eyes squinted amidst the brightness when they noticed something in the center of the dried-up, open field. A single weeping willow stood in the distance, and despite the fact that I was moving past it at sixty miles per hour, it felt like I'd been looking at it all my life.

It wouldn't be the first time I'd felt that way. To put it in simple terms, I think certain people are spiritually tied to the universe, and sometimes, the universe communicates with me. Not verbally or directly, but it makes me sensitive to things in a way that's nearly impossible to articulate. Almost like there's always a pit in my stomach that instinctually predicts the future. It sounds crazy when said aloud, but it's true.

I looked back at the willow tree again, basking in the glory of the setting sun, and I began to smile. It was beautiful and perfectly alone and felt oddly familiar, but slowly and surely the smile that had formed on my lips began to fall as I thought of the time when the universe gave me the strongest feeling I'd ever felt before.

And as the tree passed by my line of vision, I couldn't help but think that, yes, it was beautiful and perfectly alone and felt oddly familiar, but nothing in this world has ever made me feel the way I did when I first laid my eyes on Avery Lilian Quinn.

I began to feel frustrated, wondering how it's possible that I'm trying not to think of her, and something as simple as a lone willow tree has made her the center of my thoughts.

I glanced down at my poetry journal, feeling an anxious sigh forming inside me, as the pit of my stomach began to export a melancholy feeling into my veins. In one quick movement, I opened it, and began writing again.

You are the sun in my sky;
The blood in my veins;
The air in my lungs;
The beat of my heart.

You are the trees of the earth;
The rain to the grass;
The melody of a song;
The color in a picture.

You are the smell of lilacs; the gentle blow of a breeze;
The feeling of a midnight drive;
Or a walk in the morning.

You are the beauty in everything;
You are everything,
Because everywhere I look;
Every aspect of my life;
I see you.

Mindlessly, I clicked my pen in my hand as I reread what I wrote. I let out a shaky breath, as one single thought slowly, but surely consumed me.

How did I get here?