Shane Payoff

I saw a tree and considered you, or rather, thought about the manner in which you see trees. I recollected when we strolled through the Meander aimlessly in Focal Park, a wild spot in the focal point of a spot more out of control still, shining and emerald in the late-spring sun. You halted out of nowhere when you saw it. I recall how you positioned your head in appreciation, a ringlet of hair got away from behind your ear. You brushed it back with an oblivious hand.

"It is right there," you said, with such sincere energy that I couldn't resist the opportunity to feel I was missing something remarkable. I was, it just so happens.

You ventured over the little metal wall and meandered into the brush, passing on me to get after you, much as I'd continuously finished. You halted before a tree, a tree among numerous others, apparently nevertheless. However, it wasn't, not to you.

You'd carried me to see your number one tree in Focal Park, the kind of thing I'd never at any point remembered to have. You were continuously gathering top choices, or possibly you did then, of weird seemingly insignificant details. Your #1 block on the exterior of your old W 83rd road apartment complex, the one to one side of the entryway, canvassed in lichen. Your #1 letter of the letter set, g, however just in lowercase, and just in Times New Roman. Your #1 walkway in the neighborhood pharmacy, the one with the hello cards.

I took a gander at your tree, not entirely certain my thought process, having never respected a solitary tree previously. I poked some moronic fun at seeing the backwoods from the trees.

You shook your head and said, "I figure it ought to be the reverse way around." You were never one for the master plan, I never one for the subtleties. You lived in the subtleties, in the little things. 

I can't help thinking about why that tree was your number one. I've contemplated that a great deal as of late. Did you see yourself in the tied branches, in the anarchic home of twigs and leaves? Perhaps you felt that you'd distorted yourself around others, bending around the shade they cast, filling in weird ways in quest for the sun. Which would i say i was, then, the shade or the sun?

That day was awesome. I didn't know it at that point, however it was. Your hand in my grasp, your giggle in my ears, the air new and green and loaded with guarantee. I was one of your top picks that day, a piece in your colorful assortment of things and spots and minutes. What an honor that was. The shade came for us in the long run, the haziness, however not that day. That day, the sun sparkled surrounding us, pursuing off the shadows.

I don't recollect precisely when the mists came in and took you from me. Just that they did. 'Took' is some unacceptable word, I assume, an egotistical word, a fainthearted word. I let them take you, isn't that right? I looked as your reality developed more modest, when your disposed of top choices littered the road and were carted away by the breeze. I was apprehensive. Apprehensive you'd discard me like the others, so I left.

You're gone at this point. I'm perched on a seat, your seat. Or then again is it mine? I purchased the little metal plaque and picked the words for you

Abnormal the pieces we pluck from somebody's life to characterize it whenever it's finished. What's more, you had such countless pieces. I can't resist the urge to think the mosaic I've made is tragically deficient. What number of top picks did you have that you never remembered to say so anyone might hear? What number of have I quite recently neglected? What were the shadows you concealed that made you something twisted, bent and reshaped.

I would rather not contemplate that, about those dull things that guided you away, leaving the world vacant and fruitless. You generally loved Greek folklore, not in a self-absorbed way. You read Ovid on the metro. OK, perhaps it was a piece pompous, however I enjoyed it. You showed me Persephone and afterward made me Demeter. Did I get that right?

I've thought exclusively about those dull things for some time, yet I'm attempting to shove them to the aside. I'm attempting to consider that day in the Meander aimlessly where we did exactly that. God, your eyes were so brilliant, your grin so wide. I got burned by the sun, however not gravely. "It will transform into a tan," you said, with a pretentious flood of your hand, a motion that appeared to hold all the insight on the planet. It's difficult to portray how light I felt at that time as the sun played with the skyline and the grass felt cool between my uncovered toes. You measured my blushing face and giggled. You kissed me.

It's calm here, on the seat. It's getting dull. I assume I see the shadowy things that diverted you. I get it, presently, why you needed to get away. I need to go with them as well, some of the time. Could they carry me to you? I will not go with them, basically not yet. I figure things will feel quite a bit improved in the spring, when you return to me, similar to Persephone. Did I get that right?