Green. Deep. earthy, mossy, rich, and alive. I lifted up my face and looked at the space around me. Again! How many days would I wake up in this odd lost place? Overrun with weeds and brambles but with this single copse of comfort. A single lush blanket of mossy pillow.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to wake in my own bed. Alone, I fall asleep. Then each morning I awaken to a forest of sound and an abundance of life. There’s an odd afterthought on awakening, as though I had something important to remember from the place where my dreams lie, but now it’s gone, overtaken by rustling leaves and early morning sunlight. It breaks through the canopy, warming me, nourishing me.
My room is a dark hole, a place of forgetfulness and neglect. With closed curtains and abandoned plates, cups, and cutlery. It’s where my thoughts go to fester and grow more jagged, catching me and tearing small cuts into my idea of myself.
I don’t miss my room. I don’t miss that lonesome place, of dirt, and disregard. A place where I go to hide from a world I feel so alien to.
This place. My wakeful place. It brightens me and, despite its ample thorns, I feel no cuts. Despite the exposure, I feel only warmth. This is the place I should rest my head at night.
My dark thoughts should be left far behind at the gateway to this ancient forest. I need not live like that any more, but every day I somehow convince myself to go back to the confines of my life; to the place where I follow the rules and run through the motions.
Today I don’t return to the grey world and the grey thoughts, and the habits. Today I swim in the river, I eat purple berries, and chew on savoury leaves.
Tonight I sleep in the forest, it will fold me into its deep green and I can breathe and listen, I can join the creatures of this place and every day will greet me with openness.
*
This is another piece of automatic writing. It’s an exercise intended to broaden a writer’s range and allow them to see an unfiltered stream-of-consciousness example of their own writing.
It’s something I’m experimenting with and this website seems like a good venue (since my main website is for talking about my series of children’s books). If you’ve experimented with automatic writing yourself, or if you have any thoughts to share about this short piece, please leave a comment below (it’s always nice to know what people think).
If you enjoyed this and would like to read more of my work please pop along to my author page on Amazon. Simply click this link.
Thanks for reading, all the best, John
Slow Author 