Bound

Bound in unlit Christmas lights and moss, the tree waits for winter to pass, for the cold to clear. Its branches haven’t lost their green leaves, the weight of birds and children a burden sometimes, the shade a draw to lizards, possums, and skunks. The trunk is thick and roped, the ground dry and dusty, prohibitive to plants or flowers. One, though, lives. A blossomy vine has managed to snake a path from the neighbor’s house and wrap around the tree’s roots, crawling upwards, heading towards the warm crook where the trunk splits into two, then into many.

The vine won’t let go – she’ll have to be ripped away from the bark by bare, insistent hands. She’ll have to be poisoned, starved, cut, mutilated, before she’ll part ways. Even then, the tie won’t be over. No, the shredded roots will reach up through the churned soil, will stretch towards the sky and sun, and grow once again. She’ll inch across the grass, blindly making her way to the tree, slithering through the blades, and then at the shade, she’ll feel the tree’s soul and grasp the knots and ribs. Upwards she’ll move, wrapping herself around him, draw her leaves in tight, only to unfurl in a desperate embrace of the gullies and bumps and scraped skin of her beloved.

They’ll never be alone, they know, because they were made for each other and there they’ll stay, intertwined, until forever passes them by, just like we two, my dear, just like we two.