This world is not the one he knows,
but he sets off to know it all the
same. Daily he lets himself be devoured
to learn the differences between home
and here; swallowed alive by the
woods he walks them, tracing their
ways and trapping them with ink
and paper so they can’t change on him,
soaking up the silence and birdsong and
sunlight and shadows of this place
to fill the empty hours, the yawning
hole in his heart. His head buzzes
as branches snap beneath his boots, the
landmarks and paths of another land,
another life, trying to overlay themselves
on those of this, two worlds warring
in his mind and memories—of course
sanity’s the first casualty. Still he
goes out, still he wanders and charts
his surroundings, still he searches for
a way to connect what was with what
is, the path that will bring him home to
the happiness he’s denied here.