By: SP
The ground is filled with orange feathery leaves. The tree looks naked, throwing off her magical gown so the mortals can enjoy and capture their memories in their museum. It turned the forest into a breathtaking, real-life painting—the perfect weather to fall in love.
Walking amid the forest with the woman of my dreams, our hands held by one another and our hearts beating out of our chests. The hot coffee cups in our hands and the smell of earthly scents. Ahh, it’s an actual date. Who takes a woman to the forest for their date? Yeah, it seems weird, but it’s her favourite place. She likes being in nature. The smell of earthly scents and red and orange leaves lying out all over made the forest picturesque. We set our picnic cloth under a naked tree and conversed with each other about our future while my head rested on her lap. I could only see pure joy engraved on her fun, charismatic face. I knew exactly what it felt like to be loved and wanted. That place was my forest of love, and every moment spent there is still carved into the corner of my heart.
Days kept running away and slipped through my fingers like sand when we found out my love Emma had stage 4 cancer. Seeing her sick made my heart shatter into pieces. People say the heart doesn’t have bones, so why did mine break into a million pieces? The theory of the heart not having bones does not seem real. Her beautiful tuft of hair started to shed like the trees on an autumn day. A couple of days later, her soul left for heaven with me sitting by her deathbed, which was spent making a sea out of my salty teardrops. Does life have meaning when its purpose has been taken away from you?
I still visit the forest when I feel lonely, sitting in the same spot with my regular cup of coffee. Everything is still there: my coffee, a picnic cloth, and my love for Emma. The only things that’ve been left out are my lover’s departed soul and my will to keep going without my purpose.