Elephant Rock

Half packed for college and running for elephant rock,
with cold feet I ran through the secluded forest.

Hidden over flourished meadows and behind drizzling creeks
through dark openings and along carved paths.

The beaten roads didn't necessarily lead anywhere,
It was a maze of fallen branches and exposed roots

shadowed by 20 foot maples, elms, and birches.
I decided elephant rock would make sense again.

Because I could never ask my mother,
why she wouldn't let me walk home from school.

Or why I couldn't cross the street alone;
she didn't have to know I scraped my knee

in the middle of an empty forest
that day with Josh. She didn't need to know.

He told me to "stop here," on a pristine horizon where I saw
canopies never ending, the top of a giant broccoli tree.

The leaves a coalition of green,
they flickered in the breeze.

But we rolled ranch dressing down a cliff
to see the splatter of white redeem the regular.

The ketchup bottle from my basement portrayed
convictions on the chalk of their tennis court.

Our forged hopes and childish idols
plagued an in-ground pool and us no longer.

There on this rock, walls confining
disintegrated, freedom was there!

I reached for it alone in my bitterness.
I wanted so much more than my fearful nausea.

The mosquitos were relentless though, I decided to get the hell out.
Searching for light, an opening, pounded dirt pointed to respite

Down Suffolk Road, Elizabeth's house
dwarfed me across the perfectly paved street.

And when I made it back I continued packing stupidly content
with my courage. I almost found elephant rock one last time.

I got on the plane the next day waving to my parents,
I began climbing the jagged clouds.

-Dann