Sand

In what was once a lush rain forest
where i spent all of my days playing hide and go seek
running with speed of a leopard
seeking like a black jaguar ready to pounce
and tasting the sweet fruit perfectly riped and red
I played there as a child.
In the canopy I climbed to the top and was king of the world
in the streams I heard the quiet splashes of fish feeding
This was my world I grew to love.

Then the fruit began to grow less sweet
and I craved something more.

That day I climbed the highest I ever had
looked over my jungle to see the smoke in the distance.
I thought nothing of it.
I picked the unripe orange fruit.

The jungle grew smaller
and the wind grew faint.
My eyes and ears began to surrender to sleep.
I packed nothing less and nothing more than yellow fruit that I found closest to the smoke
And began to seek a food more sustaining

Through forest and planes I walked
Finding nothing but disappointment and false truths
Fruit unripe, and without nourishment.

What I had once had seek merely sweetness,
I now began to wish for filling, healthy fruit.
Finding nothing than colorless watery melons,
and fruit denied from sun left to spoil before it ever grew,
I begin to grow malnourished.

From plains to deserts,
Ripping open cactus in the desperate attempt to quench my thirst.
Shifting though sand in the small hope of finding beautiful red, ripe fruit.
Wishing once again to fill the sweetness take over my senses
and the juice to run down my mouth-staining my face and hands.
I sit here, shifting my hands through white sands.
Crawling after mirages...
With the prayer that God will show me an oasis....