A Girl Grows

a body and soul

a body and soul

my body is a flower,
my soul is a tree.

my body will grow
and become beautiful,
and withered.

it will blossom with colors,
saturated and captivating,
whispering to the bees,
dancing in the slow zephyrs that tickle its petals,
the spring
and summer days.

it will grow
towards the sun, and
its only wish
is to kiss the stars.

it will drink up sunshine and
glow,
luminescent,
with a beauty only derived from
utter freedom,
happiness.

but after some time,
my body will no longer captivate the bees,
no longer glow with the same beauty,
and as it grows
old,
it will certainly wither;
petals fall
and soon
it is nothing but
a corpse of something that was beautiful
long ago.

but my soul—
it is a tree;
words will either feed the small sapling
or strip it off its naïvety,
and it will grow sad and cold;
but it will never grow for anything else;
it grows for itself.

it takes the things around it
and roots deeply,
and will begin to grow
because of both the good and the bad.

it will turn green some days,
and some days it will be bleak
and bare
and sad,
but it will forever stay growing,
stay tall,
and when winds blow,
it will shelter those it loves,
and provide a shield for those it
cares for.

it will be a home
for those who are in want of it,
and during harsh winters,
when the flowers wither
and die,
it will smile at the world,
sheltering its beloveds,
and think
"today is a good day
for growing,
for loving,
for sheltering."

it will stand as a protection
for the flowers,
and when it is wise and old
and a thousand years
more beautiful
than a flower,
it will think to itself:
it is time to leave,
and it will remember
the days
when it was a small sapling,
a growing thing,
a growing girl,
and it will be happy.

—lana