Into the Woods with I and Myself

I went with Myself for a walk,
into the woods far from our home.
We trekked up the road ‘til it became a dirt path and followed it to the forest.

The woods have always sang its siren song to us,
But I had always been too afraid to go with me.
Until now.

These woods are haunted you know?
With wolves and witches and goblins and ghosts…
I’ve always been told that monsters live there.

After years of waiting, fearfully denying our need to go,
we had finally resolved to brave the skeletal wall of the lifeless trees,
which seemed to have no openings in its crooked embattlements.
And we forced our way inside.

We had never been in the woods before.
As children, every time we had ever approached that dark, misty forest, thinking to do some exploring,
we’d gotten into trouble.

Decorated with scratches and scrapes,
we forced our way through the thorny underbrush.
I seemed to shiver with fear and excitement.

Myself seemed distant with anticipation of the forbidden.
The branches seized at our clothes and skin—emaciated claws defending their home.
I could feel hot blood trickling off the tip of my nose.

The fading sunshine lazily painted dizzying designs on the forest floor,
which shifted from yellow to red to black to luminescent silver.

I don’t know why we didn’t go in the morning—
The woods are creepy at night.

We walked.

And we walked.

It was difficult.
Always the branches snagged, scratched, and clawed.
We were bloody and bruised and I managed to trip on every stump that he could find,
but my footing never faltered.

I hated these woods.
I hated every stump, branch, and tree.
We were exhausted and filthy and I kept falling on my face,
But I didn’t once see Myself lose his footing.

I had expected to find ancient ruined castles or legendary treasure
within the vaulting trees.

I found nothing but bruises and scrapes.

I had expected to stumble into a fairy toadstool ring or observe a witch’s Sabbath.

I saw nothing but the hateful trees.

I got lost.
Where could he have gone?

I lost Myself.
Why would he leave me?

If I had been with me, he would have
seen visions.
Dreamed dreams.
He would have witnessed the fabric of reality wrest itself from his eyes
and quiver, as drapes before a storm-battered, open window.
He would have beheld realms of permafrost gold and molten diamond.
He would have floated as dust into the sun.
He would have roared with the tempest.
He would have felt the uttermost reaches of the universe as his fingers and toes.