A Tree of Life with roots of evil will die in the storm,
before it’s ever born.
The sun will be its father, and it will be raised by mother earth.
If it soaks up knowledge it will survive its birth.
Sprouting ideas while growing its spirit.
There’s a whisper in the wind... be quiet and you can hear it.
Doesn’t need to fear it, when the weather gets cloudy.
It knows its true colors and reveals them proudly.  
It cannot be not shy, because when it looks around.
It realizes every other tree is similar,
Just different branches in the ground all waiting to be found.
Discovered and loved; nourished by nature.
It realizes its reflection is its only true stranger.
Covered with bark so you cannot see the inner.
Shadowed by the dark, transforms to a sinner.
A stump at worst, and a home at best.  
Too much is in between to explain the rest.
Now let it be known, when the red leaf falls,
It’s the end of a season for no apparent reason.
Time to change its ways; it won’t take a few days.
Give it time to mature to reach its full potential.
It sounds so simple, yet gets complicated.
When it timbers down, something new is created.
It went from a seed to sprout, conquered any drought.
Now with a shout of thunder, it just can’t help to wonder.
"Why am I here, and what is my purpose?"
But if it received the answer, would life really be worth it?

It seemed to happen
suddenly.
But looking back I found it was
    g r a d u a l.
It started with
A grandmother 8 and
A mother at 11 and
Then a nother at 14
But then there was
A noose at 17
And after that it seemed to come more often
Then there was
A gun and a school and
   A bomb and a city
But there had been
Guns and
       Schools and
       Bombs and
       Cities
Before but now there were
People and
       Stories and
       Impact and
Suddenly there were friends of friends and
Family of friends and
Suddenly the inevitable shadow at the back of my cognition
Was coming forward and
The light was just that much darker.

It had not been absent from my life
I had never met
My grandparents or
My aunt but
Now I noticed it.

Was it always there?
Silent in the corners
Happening without my knowledge
or care? And
Now it was making itself know? Or
Had it been much smaller before and
Now decided to grow and
       Eat and
       Consume and
       Take and
       Make holes
Because how could it have hidden from me before?
Because it was big I was so small?

It had always been
          An idea
        An abstraction
In books and
       Stories and
       Serial dramas and
       Movies and
       Films and
       Digests and
       Papers and
       Drawings and
       Paintings and
       Photos and
       Movies and
       Sound waves and
       Radio waves and
       X-rays and
       Brain waves and
I remember the day I realized from
Ink on paper in
  Other shapes and
With wet eyes walked into my father’s office
With many I’s like
Don’t want it to happen to you and
Don’t want it to happen to mom and
Don’t want it to happen to sister and
Cat and
Fish and
Friend and
He said “it won’t”
But he knew and
      I knew and
We knew but
What can you say?

So maybe now the abstraction
Became the concretion and
No more could I cry “not me”
Because I was all the other me’s “not me”s and
Now there it was but
There it wasn’t
Always at the corners but
Never right there and
Maybe it never would be there but
Maybe the corners would just get bigger and
The there get smaller until there was no
There
Just corners and
Just darkness.

And maybe that was when it happened.

I was born lavendar but melted and sunk and dripped down walls like hot wax until I found myself pooled at the bottom, only my dad used to smoke indoors and drywall and smoke have an infatuation, so now I am only a smoky maroon.
I never used to believe in ghosts, but now EMF scanners explode and the room is chilled every time I take a good, long look in the mirror.
I used to be sturdy,
like a tree with more rings than my mother keeps in her top drawer, but now my joints crack like firewood every morning when I get out of bed and I stretch wide enough to fill a whole forest.
I used to shudder when boys looked at the pattern on my skirt,
but eventually the dip of my collarbones became a sanctuary for every pious boy to visit, eyes closed and speaking in tongues, the heads of their beds becoming crucifixes but the only thing getting nailed was me.
I realize I am different now. But I also realize that photographers find smoke beautiful, and babies can see the dead. i remember that marshmallows are best over campfires and that some people still believe in god.