I remember it all, the streams and the forests, the mountains and the smoke.
How the Puntledge would flood each winter, bringing with it lakes in which the geese would bathe.
How the forests would swallow up sound until a scream was a whisper, a legend amongst the folk;
Never go into the woodlands alone, a wrong step and there will only be the ferns to hear your calling
I remember how it felt to grasp the trunk of an old pine and look down, nearly a straight drop of rock leading to the salt below.
I remember the way the deer would flock to the bushes, and the taste of the salmon berries they ate
The tail of a cougar after, the bears would come soon.
I remember the still-living salmon rotting in the rivers, and how the eagle would leave their corpse on our roof for the crows to fight over.
I remember the smell of earth and rust in the old junkyard, cars and desks and cinder blocks taken over by moss and trees —
Nurse logs lined our paths, and witches butter curled off lighting-struck stumps.
My bags packed and we left
The city dreams calling me towards the smoke and away from the forests.
And soon I found that in the thick city air I could no longer breathe, my alvioli working at half capacity
Breathe in — wheeze — now cough, repeat.
But what else could have happened, when my lungs had been split in two?
Half of me left to the storm and the salt and the forest, and half stuck in a cage of concrete slowly being crushed by cement bricks.