Roots ; s.mendes

A T R E E

A tree as beautiful as pipers didn't make the best mattress. Though it's long branches created a comfortable illusion,
when we awoke from our accidental slumber, soaking wet on a tree, our necks ached and backs cracked, our spines crunching as we stretched them
outwards. Neither of us had intended on falling asleep, yet we all irresponsible did so.

Piper groaned beside me, placing her bitten fingers on her lower back and pushing her stomach outwards, stretching her stiffen bones.

"How on earth did we not fall to our deaths?" Piper eyed up the painful landscape beneath her, most likely working out if we had indeed fallen, would we have died in the impact.

"I'm not sure." Eloise observed, removing the small twig from her hair and frowning at it.

I looked at my skinny legs, watching them dangle beneath me, imagining that they were two strangely shaped birds, summing up whether or not they should escape their friends and fly freely into the sky and away from all their pain and anguish. They did not do that, instead they perched on this very branch and enjoyed the way the sunlight stroked
their feathers.

Eloise lay back against the large branching trunk, her ribs poking from beneath her skin and protruding from her shirt. She placed her bony fingers against her stomach and smiled into the leaves above her.

"Don't you feel alive?" She whispered, i wasn't sure who to, maybe to the leaves, may to piper or maybe to i, or maybe to the butterfly that landed so gracefully onto the branch above her. What a beautiful butterfly it was, it was a pure white with small thin black legs and delicate wings which fluttered and whispered to me "I do feel alive."
And only moments after telling me how alive the dear butterfly felt, it accidentally flew it's delicate wings into a spider trap of webs and was tangled and strangled to its poor death.

"Oh, how sad." I pointed my shaky finger toward the web in which the most alive butterfly was now hanging dead. "The poor things dead." I sighed as I ran my coarse hands through my knotted hair.

"That's nature, Shawn." Piper told me, resting her hand onto my shoulder and comforting me, rubbing it side to side.
"We all die eventually, whether we want to or not. And some of us don't have the choice how we die, or how painful it will be. Some of us are like that butterfly, one moment we're alive and the next minute we're dead. You just have to appreciate that alive feeling while you can, you never know when you'll slip into a spiderweb." Bizarrely poetic and strangely inspiring, though they didn't make total sense they sounded like they did. Maybe it was the confidence laced in her words that gave off the illusion that it did make sense. Or maybe it did not.

I stood up on the branch once more, gazing at the world beneath me, smiling in delight at the empty fields and cut up trees before climbing back down the plethora of branches and onto the fallen leaves.

"I should be going home now." I fretted, picking at my fingernails and looking at the ground, not looking at piper who shook her head in disappointment.

"Oh, come on, kid! It's not like your mothers expecting you home, is it?!" She called from the top of the tree, crossing her arms in frustration and anger.

"I'm sorry, Piper." I looked up at her and then quickly back to the roots of Pipers beautiful tree.

And almost like some form of peace washed over her, she shrugged off her frustration and nodded slowly, resting her elbow on her knee and looking back out at the view.

"okay, kid. El, you going too?" She asked her and Eloise shook her head.

"O-okay," i stuttered. "See you home, Eloise."

I saw Eloise rip a leaf from the tree and then also watched piper scold her for it, shouting her not to harm such a beautiful living thing. it was ironic how she said that when she harmed the most beautiful living thing there was.

I walked away from the tree and out into the road, avoiding the broken glasses and dips in the sidewalk. My hands were shoved into my pockets and I whistled into the autumn sky, puffing hot breaths from my lips and into the sharp air.

I thought about how i wished my family could afford a bike for me, therefore i wouldn't have to walk these streets all the time, these streets scared me. It was a shame how every penny i earnt from working at the corner shop was stolen into my mothers greedy pockets and spent on alcohol, when it could have been spent on a bike or the bills or something remotely productive. It hurt how my mothers priorities were not her children and how not one ounce of her loved me. Or eloise, or gregory. It hurt how a bottle meant more than a smile and sip of her purple nectar could turn everything to shit, everything around me and her and my siblings into dust. How could everything be broken so easily? How could someone be broken from birth? How could someone be so cruel as to bring somebody into such an awful life? Why couldn't she have left me to just not exist at all?

A broken family for a broken boy, eh?
How tragic.

As i crossed the road i witnessed three boys on the other side of me, tall and strong. They intimidated me and i gulped nauseously. I knew what big guys like that did to scrawny boys like me and my heart thumped from my chest. Just the sheer sight of them made me want to squeal but i didn't. i couldn't. frozen.
i was frozen.

As they approached me, hoods up, hands by their sides, i tried to keep my head down and rush past them- how naive.

"Where do you think you're going, faggot." The largest of them pushed his large palm against my shoulder, such a small effort tossing me so far across the street, sliding back onto my hands, grazing them against the pavement and catching them on several pieces of glass.

"P-please, can you stop?" I whispered feebly, not looking at them, only at the blood that gushed from my palms.

"What did that faggot say?" Such pinheads, what imbeciles. Was faggot the only way they knew to insult somebody? I knew these boys from when I used to go to school, and I knew they had money. I didn't know why they were hanging around such a horrific neighbourhood though.

I didn't answer, only pushed a finger into the trickles of blood that were now sliding down my wrist and towards the arm of my sweater.

The boys then proceeded to walk towards me, kicking stones, each thundering footstep triggering a flinch. I was more than terrified, I wanted somebody, I wanted Gregory or Eloise to save me like they always did.

Just as they lifted a foot up to kick my helpless skeleton they were halted by an all too familiar shriek.

"You leave, now, Brandon." Piper snarled, her brown hair bouncing by her shoulders.
Piper also knew these boys and guessing by the way the cowered in fear and ran away suggested they knew Piper too. She and Eloise ran over to me and I wiped my bloody finger beneath my eye, swiping tears and blood across my cheek. "You okay, kid?"

I was not, I was broken and I was crying and my lungs couldn't cooperate. I was wiping blood across my face and was desperate to not stain my oh-so precious black pants.

When I replied with a sob Piper dropped down beside me and wrapped her arms around my head, cradling me into her chest as I cried my oceans into her beaches and flooded her cities with my tears, hoping I wouldn't drown.