Lost in Paradise

Dear Dakota,
    I recently woke up in a lush, vicious forest full of oak and willow trees that surrounded my peripheral .  The trees were enormous, towering above me like a giant, nearly suffocating me and it turned my sight into tunnel vision.  Through the breaks in the branches, I see a relatively small pond with jumping Koi, splashing slightly against the surface.  I feel imprisoned like a have done something terrible wrong and this was my sentence.  I walked up to my favorite tree, one that reminds me of the art from "The Dream Hunters" and I quickly fall in love.   Swiftly turn and begin to climb it.  All my accomplishments in life, I always resume back to my childhood.  We all do in a sense.  After many failed attempts proven by the deep scratches in my arms and the blood from my hands given to me from the razor-like bark I tried to grasp. 
"I give up!" I shouted.

    Then the un-heard hawks quickly became startled by my rage and take flight into the purple, spiraling sky.  They screamed and yelped as I continued to shout random obscenities, electrifying my anger.  Cussing loudly and spouting hurtful things I did not mean at the time.  But as I turn around in a fury I notice a Zen Garden.
    Grainy sand, as white as the eye can handle flows in the wooden box that holds it all together.  Exactly the way I always imagined it.  Perfection.  Rocks that add character and definition to the Garden.  One with a dark bluish hue leading up to a white cap at the slope with a rigged top and rather large compared to the other rocks.  Some of the others were covered in moss and dirt but others were completely gray.  Their was 7 rocks in all, formed like a spiraling galaxy with the largest in the middle pulling the rest (largest to smallest) to the center.  Every step I take, closer and closer to the sanctuary, new things begin to appear.  First step, a wooden gazebo made with polished, brightly stained wood starts forming, each step, rhythmically building itself until the spiral slows down and its perfectly build.  A bold, contemporary structure with oriental flair surrounds my envisioned garden and accompanies it in the best ways.  Just out of pure amazement while my eyes take in such a magnificent sight, my pace starts to decline rapidly but still with each drooping step, more and more s constantly changing. 
    Iron rods painted black start protruding from the canopies all around me.  They fly over head to form a complete circle and start to slowly sink and fall at a slow rate considering gravity.  As the wind passes through the gaps in between the iron rods making a recognizable whistling noise I start to realize what it is.  Its a fence.  I find myself standing still, watching this black ring eerily paused above my head.  I wonder if it is waiting for the perfect opportunity to trap me, cage me, like the animal I am.  But the only way I will ever know the outcome is if I keep moving forwards to reveal it's true identity; It's purpose.  But before I wait for the final verdict, I decide to amuse myself.  So I take a few steps back rapidly.  Looking up I witness all the metal un-clinging itself, scraping, twanging and really make a rambunctious ruckus while it all races back to its birth.  Then I begin to laugh for a few passing moments.  Then I get back on track, gaining my composure and walk to seek the judgment of my gods.  As the fence goes back to its original position, I begin walking again towards the Zen Garden.  My Zen Garden.  My Paradise.  As I get a few yards away, the black fence loses it's hovering ability and gravity gradually lets go.  I still am walking, nonchalantly as if there was some true answer.  Maybe I will wake up, their is nothing and it will just kill me, maybe I am already dead and in death all you do is play games.  The questions are persistently racing through my hard head until I actually see what the fence was for.  For torture.  The fence surrounded my Paradise and completely laid flesh with the Gazebo leaving no holes for trespassing.  The only access was a gate with a key hole.  I walk around the fence, holding onto the top bar, letting my fingers glide on top of the chain links while I make my way over to the gate.  I try to push it open but its locked.  Its immovable. 
"Just my luck" I say to myself while I stand completely puzzled by the whole scheme.  The gate wasn't black like the rest of the fence but a rusty auburn that looked like it hadn't been used in decades.  Its presence diminished my Paradise to a minor sanctuary.  Still worthy but not what I imagined.  All I want to do is tend to it, the Garden that is, to protect it and definitely play with it.  Grow a few bonsai trees  and just cross my legs ever so gently and meditate on the Sun.  All I can think was it must be some metaphor on my existence.  Maybe I can never have what I honestly want but I should just compromise and take the minor detail out and still call it Paradise.  But I am no Quitter and I will unlock that forsaken gate and maybe remove.  Burn it down.  I'll show them if their was some one to show.  I'll prove my own worthiness.  But before I upset myself and stay agitatedly screw everything up, I should take a break, rest and try to explore the possibilities infinitively.
    So, stubbornly, I decide to climb that tree again.  Defeat my temptations to un-lock my desires.  I sternly walk through the waves of red grass to reach the destination.  I bend my knees, anticipating, hear a crack and extend my legs as high as I can imagine to reach with these sweaty, salty palms to reach the lowest, drooping branch and I catch it.  My hands wrap around the bough, light brown with bark that reminds me of a porcupine spikes.  sharp edged spikes rough as stone and small like spider legs come forth from the branch for defense.  Quick to the touch, as my hands grip the bark, the spider legs dig and grind into my palms like shattered glass.  While I slowly slip from my grip, I ooze with anger and while I swing my limber legs up, the spikes anticipate this and quickly vanish returning back into an ordinary, slippery bough.  But since I was used to the spikes, the normalcy made my concentration dash and my hands which felt wasn't controlling them were sliding;  The only way I can tolerate such agonizing pain was for my consciousness to shut off pain signals from my corresponding extremities.  Biology at its finest but science didn't hemp me with my fall.  Falling 7 feet, the site of the brown branch seemed bleak, getting smaller and small as I fall, fall the vibrant leaves begin to slowly shrivel, turning from the darkest of green to the vilest of brown.  In a pile, they remind me of puke after a sloppy party.  As the large, pale trunk came into my vision I expected the crash.  Leafs rustling and disposing of their photosynthesis to follow my demise.  Lower back hits first, instinctively I lunge back as the rest of my spine spreads the pain like peanut butter until my head cracks against the moist soil. 
    I left an impression that day, not only on the soil like a profile but also on the landscape.  It was watching me, following me, trying to get the best of me.  After I lain there trying to succumb the pain.  The hurt was un-bearable to touch and screamed while I tried to move.  The shriveled leafs I was watching, so delicately from before, fell just like a water fall to try an encumber me, bury me, suffocate my existence.  I wonder where the others lay.  Now I will never walk through leaf piles even if I like the sinisterness of it.  But before I let the leafs decompose me like themselves, I thrust p forgetting the pain, I gain composure and use my hands to do the rest.  As bloody as they are already reaching up to my forearm, forgetting the pain I spring forward and remove all the leaf bits hanging on dearly to my white tunic still trying to pull me down all while forgetting the pain, reserving it for a later date.  After shrugging off the idea of slowly dieing in this cemetery, I go to kick the tree.  Out of spite and to gain some pride even though I still was defeated.  As I push my right foot into the great trunk, I hear a crack but something strange happens.  My foot is stuck in the trunk as if it was cement.  I try to pull it off but my foot trembles but can not break the gravitational force of the tree.  It's mass must be massive.  I swing my other leg up to give me a little more leverage but to surprise it allows me to walk vertically, up and up.  At first it was like re-learning how to ride a bike but after a few strides it becomes fluent to me.  I tread on for that branch to seek my vengeance for the crusted blood stains and the resided pain that is stored in my pounding temples.  As I reach it, I study it like a paragraph.  Limbs shoot out wrapping around the center bough to make up this thick, brass branch with barred twigs spouting from each side.  While I walk on it like a balance beam I see it start to bend like a rainbow.  It hardly supports my full blown weight so I begin the motions to crack it.  I sacrifice my body to destroy this irrational branch.  After bouncing up and down and gaining momentum, when I reach my highest arc I take a leap of faith and bring my feet, shoulder length apart on the this bough.  The crack splinters the wood and my face is splashed with wood and bark and the only thing I can see is the confetti of the destruction.  I fall only to land on the branch that gradually sinks.  Great victory only comes from sacrifice and persistent carnage.  I check the battled branch and it is slowly turning black, fading from its auburn brown, life to death.  Then ash.  I turn around and realize the tree is doing the same.  Dying.  The branch was it's life support and I courtesy un-plugged it.  I was it's life insurance policy and it was my bitch.  After the massive tree turned pitch black, it started to deteriorate into ash and imploded in on itself.  After all of it was gone, it revealed a direct path to the Koi pond. 
    Jeez I hate fish and all its fleshy, iodized, silky scales.  But this an adventure that just turned into a challenge.   One that anyone in my current situation would indeed over come.  While hiking to the pond, I magnify the surroundings and completely take it all in.  The white daisies and sun flowers that reach as high as bean stalks, lillies and grand apple trees never touched by civilization.  Seen by me and the hawks.  The purple sky radiates the nature and produces an over saturation on all that encase me, warm colors shoot out and blend into the light forming auras of mist and beauty.  The red grass at my toe nails produces a massage and leaves each step better than the last.  Solitude.  That path leads to it.  The sight of the pond shimmer and burns with its reflections.  Blues with highlights of green form from it leaving the shadows of the forgotten strangers that once resided here, as do I, scarred in the bottom of it.  Then the Koi do their sacred dance, their taunt to lure me into their playground.  Sharp yellows with specks of black and blues jart out from their bodies, gills perk up to retrieve their precious oxygen and one seriously looked at me.  And then created a splash landing back into his home.  Treading towards the pond, one leg at a time until I finally arrive at a luminescent, it radiance and brilliance.  Since no fishing poles were around obviously, I decide to take a dip.  I gently take off my blood splattered robe and set it on a stump nearby and settle in to the water one stride at a time.  After the water was up to my shoulders, I plunge in.  But instead of gliding in the water like a mermaid which I intended to do, I continued to sink like something was honestly pulling me down.  I didn't prepare for this so I am already getting light headed from the lack of oxygen.  I can feel the pressure building up and my face is becoming beat red.  I try to lift my legs and try to tread my way out but nothing seems to matter.  I guess I will drown in the lake.  As my body sinks, my weight begins to feel like a ghost, it feels like I have been falling forever.  The dark blue abyss, covered in darkness and shadows that have settled on the caverns made with time.  I think I see bottom by my lungs are beginning to swell from the weight of the water, leaving me with a furious cough until I see it.  A magnificent Koi with scales that shimmered like mirrors and reflected judgment on all that gazed upon it.  Purple lines protruded from its eyes that were shaped like a foxes.  Turquoise and emeralds wrapped around the Koi, leaving it dense with fluorescent, letting it be perceived this deep into the pond.  I try not to startle it.
"Get Close" I say to myself.
And I go for the tackle, wrapping my sore arms around the beast holding it tight until it begins to move.  I get afraid but I realize he doesn't try to scurry away but he finds a game in it.  He flies upwards through the isolated reef and brings me to the surface.  He makes a jump and clears seven feet while I hold on dearly.  I squeezed the fish and touch ground.  Feeling victorious and I decide to bring my friend.  I put back on my war-torn robe.  Slipping it on imagining a worker doing the same thing every morning for his entire life time.  I feel just as good as they do.  Anyone would after escaping so many death wishes.  Time to show my new friend around.  I take the same path back.  Simple enough, no more exploring but it is time to finish this thing.  Crack that gate and be satisfied.  I don't know the answer but maybe my friend can tell me.  He doesn't say anything so I decide he is an enemy.  He might of saved my life but I'll take his. Simple enough. 
    I search for loose twigs, anything that will catch on fire easily and easily find some in the enormous forest that surrounds my presence.  I softly stack them up like a pyramid trying not to create any imperfections.  I ingeniously pick up the red grass put it on the pyramid of sticks and twigs and unleash a gust of breath.  The whole thing, pyramid and all engulfs with flame and I quickly run for more wood.  After I replenish my supply I take a large stick and widdle it down.  I try anything to make the filleting easy for me but everything seems to be a hassle.  I just do it with my hands and there is so much blood I can't decide if its the fishes or mine.  I shove it on the stick I widdled down and cook it over the fire.  Slowly smoking the fish with the evergreen smog.  The wood crackles and the fish gushes an oily substance from its meat.  I am so hungry, after so much defeat and finally a few victories a man deserves to eat.  I don't prepare anything else but the fish and take a large bite, filling my molars to my left and right with fish meat.  Tender and sweaty.  Hardly tastes like anything but after the second bite, my teeth nearly shatter from the impact.  Must be some sort of bone I completely missed but it tastes metallic.  I spit out my mouthful of food and you wouldn't believe what I nearly lost my teeth to.  A key.
    I forgot what I was doing in this drunk illusion and swiftly pick up the key and head to the gate that was facing me as if he was invited to dinner.  I fit the key to the lock, spin it a complete 720 degrees and the gate fragmentalizes into the atmosphere like the helium does into space after a star dies.  I get lost in my own Paradise.