I kept walking, treading my way through the rainforest, going wherever my feet took me. I didn't know how much time had passed by in such a short while. I could see the sun over the horizon, feel the cool summer breeze caress my face, the dusk made my pupils widen as they took in the orange-violet hue of the sun setting in the west. Oh so slowly, yet in a blink of an eye, as the skies were carefully being returned to the moon and the evergreen canopy cleared to reveal everything I could see at once from such a height. I wonder how long this cliff had been hanging onto this side of the mountain. I always went the other way to where I had been going to since I was a child. I used to go there to lay on the grass and forget. Everything. To find comfort.
Until a few years ago, I stopped going there, it felt more comforting to visit that place in nostalgia. Laying down didn't help anymore, it just wasn't the same. I don't think my feet have ever stopped exploring since then. Trying to find a place, to stop and make me think. I was always on the move. No one could ever get a hold of me. I could end up in a desolate area and no one would bat an eye or come look for me. They knew I wouldn't go away. My feet would always find their way back. Back home. Where I didn't belong. What they didn't know was I came back just to leave again and never return if I found that comfort place. Until I discovered where this canopy led me to.
No one visited this side of the mountain, undergrowth crawling on the ground accompanying a monotonous buzz, ponds with its weeds and long overgrown grass intertwined with leafy creepers hanging from aged trees, old and high like this mountain they stood on. It's very dense and humid here, a bit difficult to breath even, unlike the fresh air on the other side all year long. I wonder if I would like how the air felt back then. All I feel when I stride through the trees, leaping over trunks and the wilderness underneath, is that it makes me feel like I have known this place for a long time, maybe for as long as it has been here. The tree barks are moist to touch and the air tastes sweet. I feel like a part of the forest. As if I could just stand there for so long and I might transform into a tree myself. Imitate their growth and warmth. I feel like I belong here. I feel at home.