I want to be there, surrounded by it, bathed in it, swallowed by it. So verdant and secluded from the world, peaceful. Air is abundant, fresh and lively, a relaxant. Life keeps moving, it’s strange to think someone died here.

This place peels off the layers, peels the weight I can’t shed. Like an onion I peel right down to my soul. The Lord must reside here, here in this secluded sanctuary. I can feel him in the sway of the trees, the rustle of the grass, in the land itself. I can find my self here. A glistening image of myself is here, but its only mirage, a mirage a desperate person finds in the desert.

A house lies to right, a white house smudged by age. The deck freshly stained, but still represents its character with pride, carries it as a flag, the chips and bowed steps are just flesh wounds of an old war, it’s in the past, faded with history. It camouflages the place my mother use to hide. Trepidation still lurks and festers there, you can feel it like a six sense, something is out of place, like a puzzle piece that just won’t fit.

My name means victory of the people. Yet I have done nothing for the people, only for myself. How am I bestowed such a name I cannot full fill? Everything falls off me, when I’m lying in the grass just breathing air, air a meth head has forgotten to breathe. Life stops for that very moment making it an eternity in my head. Life is attainable at that moment, it’s tangible, I can almost feel my life in my hand. My dreams whisper right next to me, they’re so close, just inches away, yet when I reach out they’re on the other side of the creek.

When I pull into that small drive at the dead end of Empire Ln, there is hope, hope that there is something in store, something planned, something there for me. I want to be here in this place at the dead end of Empire Ln.