Wilting
"Wilting" is based on the concept of growing up and growing old. The story goes along with the concept that in the end nature will always take over the carnage of human life. This piece was an assignment for my creative writing class, where we picked three nature objects (leaves, pine combs, tree bark, etc.) and create short stories or poems based off of the objects. For this piece I had picked a long, dried out strand of ivy.
I look at the house of my childhood and forget about the magic that was once here. All I see is the broken stairs, the ivy that has been there since my childhood that had taken over the side of the house starting to die and break away. I close my eyes and remember the glory days. I remember when this house was gigantic, when the hallways and the stairwells seemed to take forever to get through. I remember the soft carpet under my new feet, the sound of our feet pattering up the stairs. I remember mother calling up the stairs, irritated by the ruckus, but she told us to come down stairs for our snack at three o’clock. My life was a new green, just sprouting, hardly getting anywhere.
As I grew older, my leaves became more pronounced, life became harder the more I tried to spread my viney arms and climb towards the sun. The rooms of that house was where I played with my siblings every day, done my homework, where I went when I had experienced my first heartbreak. That house is where I dealt with pain, but also happiness, on a daily. Each time a piece of me fell, it always gave me the leverage I needed to keep myself up and keep going.
Now, my hair turning gray, my skin wrinkled and bones frail, I look at this house with the green and brown leaves of the ivy that circled along the rails of my front porch. I ran my hands up the side of the house, where a wall of hard stems touched my bare skin. Where did the time go? Why does everything have to leave so soon? But thinking back, the life outside of this home brought me three wonderful kids, a husband who gave me the world, and a life that I never imagined as a little sproutling I would live.
All things have their time, and like the ivy on my family home, I too am turning brown and stick hard. My leaves are falling away just like theirs. We’ve had a wonderful life, this ivy and I, but all things have to come to an end.
About the Creator
Maddie Cale
Just a 5'3" coffee addict who likes music and art.
Stories, free verse, and a lot of poetry.
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