Stay close to me as you step towards tomorrow.

Dirty feet, tousled hair, twigs and leaves still stuck to your back, from where you rested against Mamma Earth to soak up her love for you.

You walk away from her sanctuary in the hills and back into the pulse of city life, hand in hand with what you came for.

She loves you still, as you step towards tomorrow.

She sends it in the glistening of the lake, the dancing of the leaves that twirl on their branches in the wind and the warmth of the sunlight against your skin, in the glimpses of sky, between the human forest of metal and glass.

Remember her, and hold your time together close—she needs us as much as we need her. 

Stay close to me as you step towards tomorrow, having left behind what you no longer need.

The salty magic of my fear-and-hope-mingled tears—the sweaty anxiety that once pulsed in your veins and now rests with ease in its new found home amongst the ancients of the land.

Those old familiars—discomfort, mistrust, uncertainty, depression, loneliness—I’ve burned them all.

They won’t be slinking back to you in the depth of night, seeking comfort once more in the creakiest corners of your mind. They’ll trouble you no more, turned to ash and buried deep as they are now.

I can’t promise that new ones won’t burst in, catching you unawares.

Life is messy and hard and salty and rich—you know this now.

It hurts and burns and yearns and loves in equal measure.

So stay close to me as you step towards tomorrow, and together, together we will walk into the fire.

.

Relephant:

Whenever Loneliness Comes Back. {Poem}

.

Author: Sarah Kolkka

Apprentice Editor: Summer Martin/Editor: Yoli Ramazzina

Photo: Author’s own.