Our Tree

I visited my childhood tree fort, and I came across our names carved in the wood.

I remember every sliver I received from doing that, and I remember you pulling every single one out.

I remember getting tree sap stuck to my yellow dress, sitting alongside you on that thick branch that stuck straight out as if it had been waiting for us to sit there its whole life.

you had beachy blonde hair then, and your skin was so bronze; oh how beautiful I thought you were.

I placed my head on your cotton t shirt armoured shoulder, and watched the sunset settle behind the trees.

you always smelt like a freshly cleaned shower, and a rain storm.

you told me you loved me on that tree, and you said it with a quivering heart.

I waited two days to say it back, but nonetheless you still turned the brightest red when I returned the words.

my heart was the happiest it has ever been, while it was perched on that tree.

the other day they cut that tree down, because a disease was making it rot so bad, that it would soon fall.

I couldn’t help but think that it developed that disease around the same time I inherited a broken heart.

that branch that we sat upon was the first to fall to the ground.

it had nothing to wait for, or stick around for anymore.

I’d always hoped that we’d find our way back to one another, but that tree gave me the closure I had always needed from the get go.

some things can’t be saved, or they’ll make everything else around you rot while you try to revive it.

sometimes, it’s best to just cut it down, chop it up, and let it go.