With my confidence to bolster me, I reach the mountain I climb in my dreams. I trained, I studied, I did all I could to prepare for this ascent. Everyone knows I will reach the peak, I earned it.

But I don't. I fall. I fall again. And again. Each time I fall, I lose something I needed to reach the top. At the final fall, I lose hope.

A unique form of "lost" plagues me. I know where I wish to go but it is out of my reach. The destination was all I had. I wait for the universe to take pity. I did all that was asked of me and more, why do I not deserve mercy?

I realize I will wait forever. No matter how far I trek, the mountain's shadow will cover me. Yet, I must leave the mountain behind.

I forfeit. The hardest thing to do, the thing I was raised to refuse. Not if I cry, not if I bleed.

I retrace my steps until I find myself in the past. A passionate child with an imagination. She will walk on Venus. She will invent a new source of energy. She will save the whales. She will climb the mountain.

Except she won't. So I tell her so.

She argues with me but eventually accepts it. But she doesn't dismay. She will still walk on Venus, invent a new source of energy, save the whales, and run a science fair.

When I am lost, I find this little girl. She reminds me failure is not the end.

I loose myself in my memories, lifetimes ago, remembering all the good times with my mother and grandmother, my sweet children when they were younger, days spent out in the pasture with my horses.

Falling asleep to the sound of birds and horses grazing on a warm summer day, the breeze playing with my hair.

Remembering the scent of freshly cut alfalfa hay, and freshly turned garden soil. These are my favorite places, and I visit them in my memories especially when I feel lost.

It is one of life's passages

to throw off old identities

and try on someone new.

We all have a closetful

of old costumes, language, attitudes

we've used

when we've felt

our naked mannequin

grown frayed and stained

would not be enough

to fit in gain acceptance praise.

In truth

it is only

our battered inner essence

that can ever make connection

with all the other

battered inner essences

loving to be loved.

Never lost

always just waiting

underneath it all.

But I am

never lost

I am here,

cemented

to a footing

just outside

the window-

pane, in full

viewing

....

Well then

it is said

to truly

find your

Self you

must first

lose Your

-self

...

And didn't

I already

find me

as not

my Self ?

teetering

on edge

...

I hear a

nudging;

Am I lost?

No; and

that's the

problem

...

03.19.2023

Where do you go when you are lost? Challenge @Ashryn

There is

a mountaintop,

haven for the mind

Snowy peaks

reflective rockface

It is mine,

and mine alone

I am blue

my breathless face is blue

The afternoon is far to blue

I sit a thousand eons

in my purgatory of ignorance

mental illness is collective trauma.

Stand down, unseat my lofty notions.

Cultural superiority forget your place

embrace accountability for slights

I see but long to feel.

Torment my waking terrors.

Finger self inflicted wounds

peel the pain beneath the scabs

slice away my lids with razor blades

and lay ever awake, enlightened

yet clueless of the torchers flame

cast onto thatch erasing

an abode behind doors secrets

burning within. my pyromanic rage

scorched tale is left in rubble

scavenged from my soul of empty halls.

A building vacated where floors

lay one on top the other

I pretend to dance beneath

a glitter ball suspended in imagining.

Come closer

feel the breath across the lobe

tingeling sensuality

peeling me off of splattered

abstract strobe lit silhouette

a realisation not a relief.

I am blue

You are sick.

I am?

Yes you are come

let me help.

When the world sinks around me

When I feel I'm drowning

I turn to the things of the younger me

The happier me.

I dig up my cards

I boot up my xbox

I tune up the songs on my personal mobile radio

Getting

Lost all over again between the

Words and thoughts of my youth the

Channels of joy, the old tracts of passion

Lost

But still here. Still breathing.

The passage of time between then and now

It brings me back to safety.

For if I lived once, was happy even once

I shall one day lose myself in happiness once

More.

When I'm feeling lost I go "to my world of making it happen."To explain this I mean I take my mind to places that I am familiar with. The Prose is a family of geniuses that I feel totally comfortable with. I can express myself without trying to be someone I'm not. Coin collecting I love because there are so many errors on coins that people know nothing about. Working on my books settles my mind because I set myself a deadline to finish them.

When I'm feeling lost I go "to my world of making it happen." To explain this I mean I take my mind to places that I am familiar with. The Prose is a family of geniuses that I feel totally comfortable with. I can express myself without trying to be someone I'm not. Coin collecting I love because there are so many errors on coins that people know nothing about. Working on my books settles my mind because I set myself a deadline to finish them.

I often find myself riding out to help those that I know need the help. My mind is so busy.

I can't find north

There are too many stars

Im too far gone

She got in my car

I drove to the canyon

To throw her away

Where no one would find her

I think she’ll be okay

For the first time in my life

I don't know what to do

She was the one I wanted to kill

And now that it’s done, I don't have a clue

Maybe I’ll keep her

To sit in my home

I'll keep her company

Me and her, alone

She’s not scared now

So, she’ll sit with me forever

And she never leave

It doesn't get better

Than this. So you ask

Where I go when I feel lost?

To my best friend

That I chopped up

Life is a funny thing, it comes and it goes, you can watch it fade from a person's eyes in a matter of seconds. When I try think of something good, my mind always brings me back to a tree. An apple tree. It stood at the back of my house, shielded from the house by an old wall. I had tied rope around it, allowing me to climb higher into the top branches.

One time it was frosty and my foot slipped, I remember not being scared of landing for some reason, like I thought I wasn't going to land. At the last second my hand caught a rope and it stopped me falling. I wasn't scared of landing, I was just scared of falling.

This apple tree grew the nicest apples, I'd pick them and press them in the kitchen, making the sweetest apple juice ever. I'd sit up the tree the rest of the day, reading my book and sipping my apple juice. Only coming down when it was getting dark. Pushing even that. Saying that a kind firefly would light my page for me.

I knew every inch of that tree. From the moss to the leaves. From when the flowers would bloom to when the apples would fall. I knew it like I knew myself. Inside out and backwards. Could climb it in the pitch black. Could find parts of myself that I wanted to when I wanted to.

But now it's gone. Withered up and brown moss. No more apples and no more flowers. Branches have fallen and twisted. Shaping the tree differently, I don't know it this way, would slip if I tried to close my eyes and climb. My mind has changed too. The way I knew it twisted and turned. Now instead of a meadow, it's a long corridor with locked doors. I'm running out of keys.

So I'll enter the door which leads to the back of the garden. I'll sit up that tree and look at the familiar branches, I'll sip my apple juice and read my book. But it's not the same. Just a memory.

This is my last note. My last attempt to relearn that tree. 377 words. Not much. It had more leaves.