the yard

I started writing a lengthy analysis, yet again, about this hazy world we live in. But then I decided to post a personal essay I wrote for my English class instead.

"if you think i'm an artist please let me go
i can't stay here alone anymore"
-verse by me

The Yard

First it was the breeze. My steps stopped froze stock-still. I felt the air crisp clean swift like a deer running from the arrow darting around trees over rocks across rivers swift so swift then still. Stillness like a frozen breeze caught between my lips rolling over my tongue like salted kisses on Sundaes. I found my mind running in circles jumping over hurdles at a constant speed of endless continuation. There was no stopping each thought racing for the finish leaving me breathless and winded and weightless. Anxiety crushes ribs and breaks branches and twists and contorts it all every limb of the tree it breaks and cracks and swallows.

            My uncle’s house is my favorite place. I can see it all when the rope swing carries me to the apex and back again. I swing, eyes shut into blackness, and clarity finds me through the chaotic yard I cruise above. He creates a place of his own within the biome that roots him to the soil. His art litters the property and blends in with the wild vines and habitats. The animals he sculpts from metal find their own homes as rust grows over their backs and legs like poison oak around a fence. I swing and see the world get smaller, the steel animals welding to the rocks and trees below me. I feel calm surrounded by the chaos of rusted steel and discarded pottery, and all my thoughts come together in peaceful silence.

            Then it was the waves. I saw it all like a flashflood and soon the water swallowed me and I was off no stopping no breaks other than the tides that rolled in on the shore. It was the moon that pulled and kneaded the salted oasis like clay like clay salt sprayed and the water roared and soon my mind was a mess of saturated sand. The water pulled back and forth like the swing I gripped and it rocked me like it was the cradle and I the infant but the roar the roar did not quiet and it kept me held me took me.

            I imagine I am swinging towards latticed ivy, my fingers gripping tightly to woven rope. The swing in my uncle’s yard rocks softly to an earthen beat that clings to my fingernails. I swing like a pendulum, an orangutan on acid, but in these moments I feel placid as the breeze I create with my own momentum carries my hair hissing and cracking and snapping like fire around my face. It is odd how the moments when I feel most serene are when I am buried knee deep in frenzied foliage and nature’s dewy petroleum. Every chaotic thought that twists my skull into madness discovers silence, and with it, I discover tranquil solitude. Swinging is what rocks away the worry, the stress, the unanswerable curiosities – it becomes an escape when I close my eyes and whistle along with the wind. Perhaps it is the way the world looks when I glide so quickly towards the future and back to the past, the way my eyelids get heavy, the way my blood beats steady, that brings me contentment.

            Lastly it was the storm. Gravel beat down heavy and thunder drummed and drummed in circles grinding too fast so fast birds break wings and feathers fall. Clouds leaked and flooded like old copper pipes and it made me dizzy and it all spilled over and out and away. It was the tempest the quake the invisible knife the butter melting everything evaporating.  Fists knocked my skull with knuckleball bats breathing quick sight clouded confusion found in an opaque illusion.

            I can remember the silence, how the world seemed to freeze for me, giving me permission to see it all and take it all, my senses making memories like a synesthesiac. My eyes tasted the wide, wide world and my lips heard the freedom within the birds and the bark of trees. My ears smelled the pine needles, and it all felt endless, freezing me in a hot spring. This is the place that holds me down to the root beneath the earth. I relate to my uncle’s disorderedly yard, and every part of me clings to the objects that are hiding where they don’t belong. The more I stare and watch the world twist and contort with my movements, the more I see the organic mayhem folding together into a web of structured satin. As the sculptures and pieces of cracked clay melt into the lives lived by the insects and trees and streams, my own anxiety suddenly feels contained. These things in the yard, some lost, some created, some collected, help me structure and calm my own qualms. Gripping the rope swing, I move at a vivid pace - a quick, darting speed -and the world joins me in this rhythm. But my mind, it stays static. I feel bliss, for I am still again; who knew such flagrant chaos could house such blatant peace.