Alaska

I

On the last day of us, I boarded a broken plane to Alaska. The Californian sunshine became too bright; it filtered through my body like a pincushion crystal left with the damage of your sharp words.

I craved a rugged mountain range carved by the glacial hardships of a never resting sun. I yearned for air that was brisk and filled my lungs just enough to freeze over the holes your words left. I realised this beneath the Sitka Spruces coddled by Cottonwood forests. Their sweet ripening leaves hustled as the wind wailed through the forest treetops. It pulled at my hair, caressing my face. Their branches reached towards the morning sky, thinning out from tree trunks to branches until they became frail twigs ready to crumble at the flick of the wind. But Alaska had other plans for this swaying giant. The soil was cracked, held together when the ground froze over this winter passed. I'd hoped this tree would stitch its roots to another to survive long enough after the ice. Just like I had hoped the frostbitten air would freeze me together long enough to heal.

I walked through icy streams and westwood water that took my breath away. The mirage of the lake was interrupted by a galaxy of broken ice that stemmed from a melting glacier. A crescent moon where the ice hit the water had been melted away, creating a bridge like structure between both ends of the glacier. The peaking end of the ice seems to be capsizing due to its melting counterpart. It seemed unfair to me that one part of this frozen mountain was forced to sink before its time due its selfish partner. I stared at the adjoining bridge with a harsh but focused glare. Yet with all my will and all the glacier's might, it did not crumble. In due time, I supposed it would sink deeply with its failing opposite end but the distant voice in my head, which grew louder with each step, still urged the ice giant to wander freely sans bridge and baggage.

Past glacial plains, the well travelled path before me wound through rising cottonwood forest. The wind resurfaced as dark hair flicked at my frostbitten face, I brushed it away hastily trying to remember why you liked it so awfully long. The cluster of snow-topped forestry grew so dense I was unable to see my path ahead, save for a fragment of morning sky further down the trail. I saw a hum of peach sunlight hovering on the horizon. I reached out to see the light weave through my frost kissed fingertips. My surroundings were beginning to affect my being. Or maybe they had for a while but I was just too blind to see. The sunrise shone like harsh beams between the valleys of my fingers then onto my face. I could almost touch its light. But not quite yet. I had a little while until I reached it.

With my path ahead, I hoped for dirt not the substitute of frost Alaska had given me so far. The trail gripped itself around the grooved trunk of an old Sitka Spruce. The roots stretched out, reaching across the narrow path to where the mountain had given way to whatever could not survive. Weeping branches hung low, causing me to crouch down as the branches dropped further, obscuring my vision as my hands swept to and fro.

Tree trunks widened along my narrowing path, their thick, churning roots hitting the ground to trail out like boney fingers grasping for my feet. My arms reached for the rippled tree trunk which had widened just enough to knock me off my path. The path continued on whether I took it or not, but still I'd have to find my footing around the tree halted directly in my path, consuming it. The wind howled in a slithering along side me in frightful gusts. The leaves on swaying branches brushed like knives against my skin. They laced themselves around clusters of my curls, pulling me back down the path I'd just travelled. With gusts of wind, the branches fell against the force, submitting and pulling my hair harder. I struggled to hold my footing. The frosted earth crumbled with the shuffling of my feet. I peered through my strained hair. The fall below was great and the landing covered by icicle mountains. I'd perish. I could accept a miserable fate or I could push on, against the tree's trunk, against my hair and live; forever changed. I heard the your voice, felt your fingers run through the long hair you loved and ripped it from my head, leaving it behind in the branches' hold. I leaped forward from the trunk, not needing it's stability as I found my own along the enduring path ahead. I left with my hair in tatters above my shoulder. The inch above my shoulder was when I met you. My hair was a timeline of us with the inch below  my shoulder when things went bad. Dark brown hair hung from my head like the dead weight of you. The memories woven through my cells, tangling in new growth and old habits you taught me. Somehow my hair held the story of you. It swung around my cheeks whipping my purple lips at words you didn't want said. Yet now I was free with the memory of you removed from my body. My hair curled tighter in glee.

Last Tuesday I left on a plane to Alaska, where I let you be a memory and walked off an old me.