I sat by the water’s edge, studying how the ripples would jump and dance off my toes as I glided them threw the choppy water tide. How they looked like little sail boats drifting along. Around me the forest came to life; the trees dancing in the wind that crashed apron me like ocean waves, the flowers kissing the streams of golden sunlight the shot through the trees like holes in a metal roof.

It was cool here, a place where only earth and nature meet, and people solemnly set foot among her beauty, they felt safer in the shade of the giants, feel less alone with the company of the sounds of traffic, and the hustle of day to day. I prefer to sit by myself, I prefer to hear my thoughts, these voices in my head, they are kinder in these places. Less peering, judging eyes, less gripping hands that tear me back to reality, WAKE UP! It’s hard not to want to scream, these voice they can get so loud.

I can remember the first time I came to my hideaway beneath the trees, it was back when I was just like everybody else, and when I knew that who I was talking to they would be able to talk to everyone else to. I had climbed down the hill and followed the stream down the perfect pool, where the water trickled down and gathered creating a waste high crystal clear pool. I had stripped off my clothes and jumped in, letting out a yelp as the freezing water rushed up and engulfed me, pulling me to the bottom, lying among the stone bed, I looked up at the surface, the sun glittering off the top. I had felt so at peace in this place, and I told myself it would be my secret place, where I could come and look back up at the surface of the world from my place beneath the waves of destruction and find my peace again.

  Now it is the only place where I can speak to my mind, without some woman gripping her child and pulling them from my dangerous behavior. Remember, if you don’t make eye contact I won’t suddenly attack you, lady. People would stare, people would laugh, so I stay quit and try to ignore the screaming begging voice that plead for their own life their own body, but I keep them locked up, keep them secret, like this place.  I don’t have to try to pretend here; I can just be me and they can just be them, and for a moment as my toes drift on the current I feel normal.