the roots clung tightly, yet stretched at the same time
old birch wrapped its limbs around brick and mortar; hugging the air with it’s wrinkled wood
she danced beneath it, singing a song older than the wind that swept her curls as she moved
when she got very still, she could feel the whole world circling around her
time lept on, as it seems to do
the girl grew and she grew, she reached and stretched and soon she could reach the tallest of smallest limbs on the birch
she perched where the tree met the limb, at a crossroads of sorts
sharpening her hunting knife and carving letters of loves, peeling apples and bowing down to the clouded sky, the jets, the stars, and the moon as it rose above the mountain to the east
seasons passed, as they tend to do
the girl lay on the bed of earth ‘neath the tree as the leaves became yellow and orange then brown before joining her to rest
she wondered and kissed and loved, and soon she couldn’t be still anymore
snow tucked the tree in, and the girl marched away, far away from the tree; determined to never set eyes on it again
she followed the tracks, the flowers, the roads, and the people
she looked everywhere for this freedom she felt in her belly
she backflipped and front flipped, she swam, and she drowned
she found herself beneath a pile of rubble, just to lose herself in the mist yet again
she found herself in other’s arms, only to find they weren’t her after all
she scavenged, cried, worked and worked and worked some more
one day on her lunch break, the woman found herself eating under a birch tree…
this tree was smaller than the one she used to swing from
she touched the tree, grasping for the comfort it once gave her, but expecting nothing
time to stop fighting… said the tree to the girl
the woman rolled up her lunch, and walked back into her adult life
that evening, the woman picked up her own little girl
she held the little girl tightly, just as the tree used to do to her
in which she saw her roots, her limbs, her scars, and leaves
and she regretted not one of them
