I want mountains.

God, I want them so bad. And towering forests, deep and inviting canyons carved by powerful rivers, rivers that seem to be only a trickle from far away yet are strong enough to rip you from the world entirely.

Frustration defines me, hems me in and contains all the nervous energy that might otherwise be in danger of spilling forth into something noteworthy. Every time I catch a glimpse of the mountains in the distance, an intangible piece of me bounds forth into being; for brief moments, I know where I am, and where I need to be. Then the light changes, the truck in front of me pulls forward and I'm lost again. I work, I drive, I study and I try to find solace in other people but all the while the I in the equation is frustrated because no matter how long he stares up at those cobalt peaks, they refuse to become real.

I've climbed those mountains, wandered through their forests and slipped in their streams. The reality is always less than the imagined, weaker perhaps because of my own presence in the portrait. No longer a landscape, this lonely tableau of a wanderer in the woods loses something in it's ability to be defined.

Is this your God? That urge, that need, that indescribable something that fills you in an instant and departs before it began? How can you stand it?

How could someone embrace this frustration, an elusive and indescribable piece of yourself flitting about? It taps me on the right shoulder then darts about to perch on my left; by the time I've looked around, it's gone again, and only in hindsight do I realize the enormity of my mistake. When I sit by a woodland stream, I see an ecosystem; hiking a mountain trail, I see bike treads. Sailing on the open ocean, I can't smell the sea for the Subway wrappers; defining what I am, I make black jokes.

I couldn't keep up with art, because the paper never looked like what I saw. I gave up on music, because the melody could never compare to the music I heard. Even now, I have to force my fingers; what I have written is nothing compared to what I have thought, in the moments between breaths. I am part of something I cannot define, and it is beautiful. Achingly, maddeningly beautiful. Turning away in frustration, losing myself in humor and cynicism is preferable to that perpetual anguish.

One day, I'll find what I'm looking for. Will that be Heaven?