SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES

Tree of Life

Fascination is cheap,

but my admiration travels in light years across scattered dimensions.

I’m slow to grow, and slow to know, but there’s a perfect precision in my haphazard collection of souls and apparitions.

Patience is a virtue, but here, it’s a necessity.

Late-bloomer, they say, but I’m just taking my time.

I’m not a flower, not to be cultivated, harvested, plucked up between dainty fingers or placed in crystal containers on granite countertops.

No, I am not a flower, I’m a tree.

And this kind of complexity? This takes time.

I’m not looking for perfect pieces, just ones that feel right. But these fools, they aren’t even around long enough to listen. They watch me plunge my roots into their thoughts, grow myself from their nutrients, but then they’re gone, because they can’t wait that long.

It’s as if they’ve forgotten that trees can’t speak without their leaves.

Late-bloomer, they say, like it’s the flower that matters,

and not the stalk.

But the embellishments that adorn my head don’t mean anything unless you know where I’m coming from.

One of these days, my roots will sink deep, and after years of trunk-thickening and branch-extending, these flowers that everyone keeps talking about are gonna bloom. And in the autumn, those blooms will drop heavy with fruit, and this fruit will be mine to eat.

I’ll just keep growing stronger, thicker, taller, because I am the Tree of Life, and 

I have never been late.

*This piece was predominantly meant to be an audible one--a reading can be found in the media section to the right, if you would like to check it out.