I am a tree

I am a tree
that grew too close to the path.
I didn’t mean to.
I just reached for the light.
Isn’t that what all living things do?
They came,
one after another,
hands like brief storms
carving initials,
dates,
declarations,
forgetting that permanence lives in wood.
Years passed.
I kept standing.
I grew around the wounds.
Bent, not broken.
Scarred, but still bearing leaves.
Then one day,
an arborist came.
With quiet boots and thoughtful eyes.
Gloved hands brushing the bark
like reading a story in braille.
They shook their head,
not with scorn,
but with a kind of sorrow.
"Too close to the path,"
they murmured.
"Too many injuries.
Not sure it can be saved."
And I wanted to speak.
To say:
I held their stories.
I bore their weight.
I never broke.
I only ever stood where I was planted.
But trees don’t speak.
We only creak.
And so I waited
for the verdict
axe or mercy,
cut or keep.
Because even now,
I don’t know if I’m dying
or just different.
I don’t know if my longing
is rot
or resilience.
All I know
is I grew toward the world.
And it marked me
for being near.

They say love is tender.
But every hand that touched me came with a blade.
The one who loved me most
came with the sharpest tools.