The Hill I'd Like To Die On

The hill I’d like to die on is covered in clover and tiny white flowers that leave bright yellow kisses on every bee and butterfly that visits.
The tallest, widest live oak stretches out to frame sunsets and shelters the oldest puppies in the world.

There is a lightning-fast, slow-motion tire swing on the thickest branch that spins around the laughter of little boys and girls that never got buried in old souls.

Somewhere in the arms of the oak, there is a brown-haired girl who simply does not have to do a single thing that isn’t sincere, joyful, or explicitly desired.
She holds loosely onto whichever stringed instrument felt right for the moment’s mood and sings the silliest and most profound melodies into the wherever, for whoever, and no one at all.

Her brothers are LARPing underneath, following whatever rules they made up as they went.
The eldest of them weaves the mythologies of the old worlds in the new one he’s building.
The blonde is impish enough to cause a bit of trouble and wise enough to repair it with the gold leaf of true repentance and growth.
The youngest keeps unintentionally sitting us all down in wonder at the music he makes out of thin air and whatever might become notes.

There is probably a blanket that we forgot to bring with us sitting on the table that has been the stage for countless highs and lows.
Instead, I am sitting next to you on the grass, fingers drifting from the cool earth to the back of your neck or the scars on your arms.
They dance to whatever riff you and your guitar are providing to the two bookend children and all the melodies they imagine.

That is my hill.
That is the thing I am reaching for every single day.

There are mountains between us and that hill.
Mountains and valleys and flat, ever-stretching battlefields.

Our party may gather strays that become family along the way, and I cannot wait to meet them.
We may lose a few limbs, gain a few pounds of baggage. This is to be expected on the journey to a hill one is to die on.

There are many more I would die on if need be.
But that is the one I am walking towards.