The Non-secretive World of Being

            Deep in the lonely, I shook in my mind the shadowy ramparts of cut, darkened mountains miles away.  My head was full of cliffs.  My heart, nothing at all.  Existed a simmering, pitiless heat near this thick river in the woods.  It was summer and it was hot up here in the north.  I was in a part of Alaska that had few names.  The pines were not (never whispered) whispering to me.  I happened in a deeper sense to look over into the darkness and saw what my time was about.  And it did not scare me.  Yes, I slightly worried about that.  Why I was not afraid.    Why had I come here.  But in my head those questions became declarations of my own stupidity.  I never had any problems about that either.
Dusk had fallen on the gorge.  The blur of night sank into the crevices of my teeth.  All at once I was wilderness.  Had become it.  And was happy.  Wanting to cling to the meanings that existed within me, the dark meanings that made a shallow lake larger than it was.

            I saw what time was about.  But I did not like the reasoning. I did not want to understand anything of any meaning of it.  When I am the woods.  Or will become the woods.  The towering red walls of ancient sandstone.  The seven year buzz of electric cicadas.  And the piercing darkness.  That darkness.  We all deal with.  With its shame.  I had become.
            No lively beaches here.  The river startled my intrusion.  It hated my kind of wilderness.  Sure, I wanted to go in but knew its dangers.  I wanted to be the dry wilderness.

            Finally, it was morning.  I had slept with the horror overnight.  Its dullness had really not disturbed me that much.

            I was not getting used to why I was afraid of night.  Ghostly gums stood by.  It was a rock-locked world.  I kept thinking of the easy life of my old home.  How no one was around there either.  How that was what I was used to.  How that was fine.  Because there I did not have to deal with questions.  Only peace.  And un-deliberate rumbles.  As nature I knew more of wandering than sitting still.  Quiet wander.  Here, thrusting through bushes, were the moments we never get used to.  But should.  The moments that hang in hand.

            As nature, I am a pale fish wriggling on land.  I just got caught and am feeling alone.  And out of my general milieu.  And humble.  And small.  Like I know I must be eaten during these moments.

            Fissures, and hauling what the coming noon sun was doing to my time did not enlighten me.  The flourishing red of day was coming intently into my eyes.  And wanting more of me.  Except staring.  I looked over the world I had learned in text books and did not find any of this that I was now seeing and sensing and being.  Texts aren’t even prefaces of what really is out here.

            Tentatively, I felt contact.  A cold hand.  Grasping my shirted arm.  And wanting me.  I wanted to take my shirt off.  To be nature.  I wanted then to take my pants off, and my hair, and eyes, and nose.  Yes, I did take some things off.  And felt more alive.  But knew I could never totally feel like who I had become.  I was somewhat artificial.  A huge subject for the human race.  And for God to deal with.  I lifted my eyes and could not see sky. I knew I was in too deep when that happened.

            Wild hopes were beyond me.  I was aging.  Wanting peace (in the quiet sense) and loneliness.  I had found no one willing to love me.  And stay with me.  Through these years that I was not getting better.  No one.  I wanted to stay with that.  Now this hand.  On my arm.  Wanting.   Me.  For what I was, and  was not saying.  One thing.  I accepted.  Of course.  And flew deeper into the darkness, away from the bluish sky and time.  But I was nature.  I knew I was half darkness and half light.  But then, the more north I was this time of year the more I was darkness.  That excited me.  I always wanted to be evil.  But was never allowed to be this.  Too much of my life was devoted to smiles.
            I wished to slice through the rocks of the mountains, go deeper into rock.  Deeper into what they were about.  The span of a million years.  My span.  I wanted to know all about this.  But was not allowed.  In all things, all places, all people, all of what goes on on this earth, I am not allowed to know it all.  And this angers me. The banded rocks.  The stream I never entered.  Cloistering gums.  Heavy rains.  The long, long erosion of who I was.  And who my lover will be.  I realized then that I would never have one true lover.  That they were all takers.  Because I am nature.

            And truth at the same time.

Gallik has multiple short stories and poems printed all over the internet, and in college journals.  Yes, The Hiram Poetry Review, Parabola, The Hawaii Review and many other publications include his work.  His first novel, A Story Of Dumb Fate, an insane story of a child with disabilities can be purchased at local bookstores and publishamerica.com