A Love Story Joseph Hong
Do you remember back in the day,
when all we’d do was meet up and play
inside the forest? After school, we’d run
straight to the field out back, and I’d pick out the finest of my stick stash, then give you the second-best of these, and we’d dive
deep into the green embrace of the woods. Being with you was what I looked forward to, glances of glee almost impossible to miss, but nothing beat the feeling of us being inside the forest.
Climbing trunks of ancient, wrinkled oaks, wondering if they’d hold us, occasionally falling to the ground,
discovering that they couldn’t; the trees would laugh with us as we made fools of ourselves.
Ducking beneath low-hanging branches, twigs crackling beneath us, we’d talk for hours, navigating the foliage with swords
made of wood. We’d watch deer stalk
through the brush, chase after rabbits startled by our footsteps, and feel the rays of sunlight
streaming through the cracks of the canopy above. Spring led to summer, then came fall. The leaves lost their lively green, giving way to a lifeless brown. The
chill of winter crept through the oaks we scaled, and
before we realized it the snow was upon us. The flakes
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