I Found Logan

I found freedom on warm pavement outside my first apartment. The thrill of an unknown future, a future that was my own to change and abandon and pick back up at the drop of a checking account balance. The relief of a warm summer night when invisible crickets sing and the stick of the day's sweat begins to cool and dry with the sun sinking below the Wellsvilles, leaving a chevron pattern of pink and grey-purple. 

I found fun on the trails of Green Canyon. Through the neighborhoods and the cemetery, across a golf course where we walked the greens and the sandtraps hidden by the night. I found peace on long Sunday afternoon walks - down the hill and through the overgrowth, the sidewalk littered with walnuts and propellers. 

I found him under the stars, first under the glow of soft streetlamps, his I love you barely audible over the sound of my pounding heart. And then again by the campfire flickering under a sky drenched with stars - the highway barely audible over the sound of the wind through the weeds and his laughter. 

I found love on a hill in three feet of snow, the wind whipping the flakes to gather on my curls and white gloves, the chill seeping into my bones pressuring me to scream through gritted teeth - the smile on my face wide and impenetrable. Taking pictures against a backdrop of pure white, the hill we stood on overlooked a blank slate, a fresh start, a new future. 

I found joy on a crisp December morning, when the night's ice-crystal snowfall melted away as the sun came through the canyon filling my room with soft hues of pink and orange and blue. And we brought him home slowly over the icy roads, into his room where the A shines brightly, reflecting off his wall.

I found home in a place where I could kiss the same ground I cursed to hell six months ago.

In winter, she wears white lace and silvery sequins of frozen raindrops. Her breath comes out in smokey puffs that kiss the tops of the evergreens. Her eye is golden and cheeks flushed with pink. Her summer dress is leafy and full, her sash the sparkling water that flows freely through her rivers - a lilac twig in her hair. She is temperate and kind, but occasionally hard to live with - her temper flares up in a cloud of fumes and exhaust in her core, but on the outside she is still sunshine and waves of grass or white tufts of snow.

She took me in - a transient girl - she welcomed me warmly and showed me new friends, new growth, new love, new family. And like any mother figure, I thought I didn't like her, didn't need her, never did - until it was time for me to leave.