When the music's off and the room gets empty

Destroyed by the root.

A tree lies on the ground.

A dead forest, bird calls, rustling leaves, a doe watching.

The wood is old, overgrown, and weathered.

One, two, three hundred rings.

Destroyed by its own root.

The dirt that raised it, bringing it to rot.

Betrayed by its own kin.

I wonder if it dreamed of reaching clouds,

If a bird ever rested on its branches,

If it knew the shelter it gave to its sprouts below.

Its roots once dug deep, anchoring it strong,

Drawing life from the soil where it belonged.

But over time, they coiled and choked,

Turning sustenance into a strangling cloak.

Once an anchor, now an enemy.

But it wouldn't scream.

Did it remember how the dirt once held it close,

Nurturing its roots, though now its ghost?

The dirt, once a friend, grew heavy with spite,

Its weight pulling the tree from the light.

The roots twisted inward, a serpent's embrace,

Breaking their bond, leaving no trace

Of the life they once promised to endlessly feed,

A betrayal born of the tree's own need.

Did it feel the slow decay?

The silent theft of life each day?

Each crack of a branch, each whisper sent its way?

Did it sense the shadow beneath the bark,

The creeping end in the gathering dark?

Now it lies, a monument of despair,

Its broken body laid bare.

Yet the forest moves on, the doe watches still,

As the roots of another tree begin to spill.

-August

xoxo MWAH<3