RUNNING TOWARDS YOU

"If ever I was running , it was towards you..." 

                                                     -Jennifer Elizabeth

It was a winter long ago, but I  still remember. Snippets in my here and there. Of Red boots. Red boots stamping up and down. Furiously.

Snow on the ground. I wanted to wear my red gum boots. Stamp. Stamp.

I was four. A furious four. I wanted to wear my red gum boots out in the snow.

I wouldn't stop screaming. Willful I was. (Still am )  So my father made me put on my coat  before  plunking me outdoors on the doorstep. My red boots and I. In the snow.

And he watched me. Through the front portal of the door. And the snow came down.

I screamed and pounded and kicked the door.

"I run away" I yelled. "Fine," he said through the portal."You do that.."

"Running, you should know, is a kind of stillness.." 

                                         -Tiphanie Yanique

Stamp. Stamp. Scream . Pound. Stop. Then Listen. I listened to the quiet. Snow fell. 

And where would  I run. Left. Right. With snow like stars in the night.

It fell and it whirled and it swished this way and that. 

And for once I stood without making a sound.

My red boots crackled in the cold.

And I wanted to run . But not away. But towards him.

The door opened. And he stood there in the warmth of the house.

And my father lifted me up. So high.  And I heard his voice:

"I'll be the mountain whose whispers trigger you to stop running ,and start becoming the lovely yet stunning avalanche you most certainly are..."

                                   -Curtis Tyron Jones

 Photographs 2021