September

I ran out West, in a state of bewildered distress.

Suffocated by the gaze of the streets, my peers, and myself.

My thoughts, a vacant expanse.

I sought refuge in the mountains.

Grounded. Balanced. Inseparable from the Earth.

I rose with the sun and fell asleep with a book resting on my chest.

The days stretched long as I walked the trails between the trees,

Returning to the self I had once left nestled among the leaves.

When it was time to return

To a place I had once seen as nothing but a realm of lust and loss,

I stood on my own two feet.

Grounded. Balanced.

It seemed all I had to do was return to myself,  grasp her hand, and bring her presence into the world I live now.

And now, here we stand, one and the same, inseparable from each other.