Really, those woods saved my life.
Fourteen is hard. When home and school grew too much to bear, I turned to the woods. I'd walk the paths there, and the storm within would still. And when I left the woods I knew that, no, to live was better.
At first the woods were mine and I walked them fearlessly, but only by day. By night they belonged to themselves, and I feared to go there. To carry a light would have been a profanation, and I feared to walk in the dark.
But then I learned what still can't help but seem a metaphor.
Bare feet will always manage to find a path in the dark.
Take off the shoes and walk. Then you will disappear, and there will be only the woods.
And the god that lives in the woods.
Of this, I will say no more. (Some things are not for telling.) But for me, it changed everything.
Everything.
This much I will tell: there is a god that lives in the woods.
And this: bare feet will always manage to find a path in the dark.