text: I walk along the beaten dirt path and come closer to the trees. The birds chirp frantically and loudly as I approach and I wonder why. Perhaps I am not welcome here, perhaps they are afraid, or perhaps... As I wonder more I grow panicked. In this moment of panic I am no longer human, but I am prey to a most unsuspecting predator. At least, unsuspecting at a first glance to the average person. But if you were like me, you’d notice their sharp talons at the ends of their feet, perfectly sharpened and eager to sink into vulnerable flesh. Their colourful matted feathers call you to come closer, and just when you’re close enough, you notice the beast glaring right at you, your skin will be reminded of the drugs that penetrated your virgin flesh and forever tainted your life. As you lay in pain on the ground, you’ll notice you are lifeless and yet experiencing the most you’ve ever had in a surge of unclear emotions. The experience is cut short by the sharp pain of an army of birds pecking at your skin until you die. In these moments of suffering, you wish for the release of life’s tight grip on you. The grip that held your hand when you fell off your bike to ensure you could experience life’s purest moments, the grip that pulled you back from the ledge when you didn’t appreciate the hardships that life had dealt you. And now, even after saving you many times, it lets go. Out of sympathy, life lets go and you drift off into a peaceful sleep preluded by pain. Even in death, the birds will forevermore be pecking and pecking at the remains of what once was. I walk deeper into the woods as you drift further away, and the chirping is silenced like my voice in my times of need. Have I been able to get away? I don’t know yet. Am I safe? I don’t know yet. Will I die soon with the same fate as you? All my questions hold answers unclear as my mind and the clouded sky that you left for. I didn’t ever get to say a proper goodbye. Perhaps the unknowingness of when we’re going to die makes the inevitability of death so frightening. We hold on to life so tightly, believing it to be the peak of our existence, but maybe the release of death is true heaven and life is a hell we must endure first to test our worthiness. Life is all we’ve ever known, and we’re not so foolish to let it slip away, so we fight to stave off death, but the harder we fight, the harder death fights back and we only die more painfully. I begin to clear my mind in hopes of reaching the blankness if ourselves during death. My eyelids fall heavily onto my eyes and I allow myself to become vulnerable. I let the sound of the wind fill my body, and with the wind I hear wind chimes. Is somebody nearby? Is there a home I can turn to? Or is this merely a mirage of my own ears, fooling me into thinking I am safe. But I need not be fooled into thinking I am safe if I can find safety in the water that envelops my body like a mother’s hug. My body relaxes as I find peace within myself, and I sink deeper into a never ending dream. In this dream, I can finally say hello again, my friend. I’ve missed you.