Field Guide to the Haunted Forest (Haunted Forest Trilogy)

by Jarod K. Anderson

The night can be longer than we expect. The wind can be colder than we predict. The dark beneath the trees is absolute. Gather the fuel. Double it.

Our blood and breath are hand-me-downs. The landscape is not scenery. It’s family. Notice the resemblance.

There is no culmination in success or failure. We are not curated collections of achievements or mishaps.

the illusion of separation we see here on the budding branch-tips appears because we can’t view time the way we see our own vital hands.

To the forest of hands that lifted me up into my own simple life. I wish I could know the whole, so I could love it more completely.

Our goal was never safety. Our success is not measured in forever. Our years are seasoning, but the meal is meaning. Our task is to become our truest selves and to smile at the knowledge that we will not succeed.

We are creatures born to thrive on the borderlands of ruin.

You’re too good for perfection.

Truth and fact are sisters, not twins.

Your moments deserve the same careful attention as your years.

You are the sunlight, but dreaming.

most of the matter that has worn your name is already spread throughout the world. We bury our remains in the soil of our lifetimes.