Running

Trees looked tropical there. It was like traversing a lush rain forest. That is what I thought anyways. The walk to school included about 3 magical minutes of Peruvian jungle. I didn't tell anyone about it, I didn't tell anyone anything. My wilderness escape was so stealthy and so complete that my real life as an adventurer was utterly and totally invisible.
There was life in the trees. All manner of creatures that buzz. Creepy things. Slimy things. Flying animals that made strange noises. I had previously been unaware of how one could be so pleasantly affected by other living beings.
Sometimes after school I would go back to the trees alone to get a closer look at the residents of the woodland. Salamanders were so unbelievable to me that I just had to swallow my fear and get one in my hands. I would catch them and look into their tiny eyes. Then painstakingly find the exact spot with wood and water and leafy greenness, to set them back to their freedom.
Never before in life had I had anyplace to get away from the fuming and festering poison that inundated my pretend life. The life that was out of control and getting worse by the minute.
I used to have some time to myself and then wherever I went I could be the real me, the adventurer, but that was before I started school. So by 2nd grade solitude seemed like an ill conceived dream formed in the fearful half sleep one might gain the fetid hovels of home.
But there were these trees. Not too far from the yelling that meant doom if not answered immediately, but dense enough to not be seen and therefore not surprised. If any of my siblings was nearby I could enter this jungle at any point and disappear into it's safety. And there I could sit and any time of day or night and not be disrupted or found. I could practice counting and recounting, or sing songs to myself, or rhyme away all of the darkness the threatened to break in to my mind and undo all of my hard work. There certainly were times the fear or frustration would reach a boiling point far outside of my capacity to cope, and the trees were always there to swallow me whole and negate all that seemed to infringe on what I've come to realize was my very sanity. I soon found out that running was the only answer, the only thing to save me from the monsters. So I would. Down the stairs, out the door, across the parking lot, across the street, into the trees. But they were just trees, so I had to keep running. The only way was to run until your chest tightened, until you weren't so much holding your breath, but unable to breath. If they were still trees, then you had to keep going until your legs started to stumble, until your hands kept you from crashing to the ground, until you could go no further, breathe no longer, until you were unable to stand. Then the blackness came. And when it was gone the sun would shine through the branches of the beautiful jungle and the magic would erase everything but the dirt and the trees and the air and the rain. If you were lucky it would rain.