Driving out of the dense valley forest, we arrived at the wind-ravaged coast line. California I whisper, under my breath, trying not to be in love, to calm the trembling in my soul and the queasy dizziness in my solar plexus. The oak-dappled golden-grass hills roll out before us, the redwoods, their secret groves, quiet, dark, suspended in fern-green eternity.

We shiver and snap photos. Still images frozen so I cannot, will not forget. I'll be back I promise, as if to a lover, one that will feel my lack in his bones, but I'm not sure. When will I be back? I want to shout out my query to the crashing blue-green waves. Earlier in the morning, naked and wet in the sulfurous springs, "welcome back to the womb" the women had laughed and smiled, we splashed in the early morning sunshine, our breasts floating on the edge of the filmy water, the sun shone down, a smiling mother. It was damn near perfection.

Has it come to this? I hold my breath. Up and down the coast, up and down... I hold my breath and then exhale, feel tensions building, chase them away, grabbing at the joy, as if they were his hands in the throes of a passion that is maybe only uni-directional? I don't know. The darkness comes and chases away my sleep, my sweetness is only a mask, a trick of mirrors and smoke, of light reflected off the water. I feel deformed, bereft. Sleep does not come easily.

The day before, swimming against the current, in a river with no one around. I smile at my dearest friend. Of course it isn't over, I assure myself. But I know I lie, I am always lying to myself, how to disentangle the truth from its exact inverse?

So I let the water wash over my body, my eyes devour the landscape of the hills and valleys, his chest rising and falling, trace the lines of his face, the angles of his collarbone as it meets his shoulder. I shudder. I am alone. I am leaving. California, don't make me go. I beseech the air, no one at all, myself. Don't make me leave the possibility of... I recognize, of course, that this is a tragedy of my own making.

I shake it off and muscle through. Still, though I pretend, I am so afraid. Frightened of the unknown, of the radical loneliness that awaits in the overwhelming greenery. Scared of dying alone. Too young? he tells me, and I smile ruefully. Too young to fear a lonely death? This is death, leaving the golden grass, the ocean, the sharp angles of mountains cutting the sky, my heart, in pieces, pieces that were never mine to begin with.

But life is good, too, I am reminded. Impossible beauty, here whenever I need it. This is here, California will still be here, waiting for me with her open arms. I can't fight for what I can't take with me, I can just offer my body up in sacrificial shudders of pleasure and pain, wracking my body, in rolling waves of grain and salty sea-water, endless rows of entwined grapes that embrace the foothills, wind whipping hair into obstinately intricate tangles. I close my eyes, I don't know what comes next, I let go, floating out into the dark night, the stars pulsing in distant patterns that I cannot decipher. I begin to fall, and hope that the landing will not smash my bones into a thousand tiny shards. Perhaps...