The Feast

I can feel the forest’s willowy breeze tickle my neck. Her trees creakily yearn for our connection once again, yet this call feels stronger than any before. I know not what else she could need from me, save the very bones beneath my dry, fragile skin. Terrible, yet beautiful; powerful, but compassionate; her woodland contains both my highest aspirations and most grievous short comings.

Getting up from my brown, brittle rocking chair, I advance once again toward the mouth of her dark jungle as she implores me to come quicker with each painful step. Fighting through sharp thickets of thorns, I lose sight of the sun overhead. A horrid heartbeat throbs in my ears as I run to our old, familiar clearing (now black) in which we first met all those years ago. Beautifully radiant, my blossom was. Never had I seen such a woman so pure and dangerous. Fear had clouded my head, but she soothed my brain as though petting a cat.

Now, instead of a heartbeat, her shrill, screaming commands repeatedly pummel my ear drums. I fall in the center of her swirling leaves, a tornado of green and brown forming around my supine body. This feels strange. The forest is hungrier than before, and foreseeing the terrible event about to take place, I leap up and charge the solid, rotating wall of foliage to no avail. I hear the familiar whisper of her voice speaking sweetly as she did our first day together. “Do not be afraid. I am here, you are here. We will be one soon enough, my dear. Do not resist. The process is painful but the reward sweet as dew and honey.” Her soft words lull me to sleep and I fall on my back once again.

Slowly, the leafy whirlwind lifts me in the air, revolving around me as though I were the eye of a dark storm. The wall turns faster, constantly increasing in speed when finally my blossom tears the flesh from my body until there is nothing of me left but pearl white sticks. Taking them in her formless, airy hand, my love distributes the bones throughout her mysterious wood, planting me again, waiting until I grow strong enough to connect with her once again.