Chapter Text
It’s quiet down at the creek
It’s where I come when I’m down
There’s a trunk that sits slanted
A space to rest
It’s close to uprooting
But when I sit it doesn’t falter
When it does, I’ll know I’m too much.
Deer run through the branches
Rustling, running
They never liked me
Even though I’ve been here for twelve years
A face sits in the trees
Grinning perilously.
Sometimes I want to go to them
Other times I don’t
Wasps float by
I don’t pay them mind
They don’t pay me mind
There’s a rumbling in the distance
Didn’t my friends tell me that it would rain soon?
The air smells of rain and electricity
There’s a lot of trees down here
A vulture will swoop by
I get the feeling that it smells the dead on me
I have ibuprofen in my bag.
Perhaps I will overdose on it soon
There’s a sound.
I can’t identify where it comes from.
I can’t identify if it’s a bark or gun
Or a cry
The chair is overturned under the Cyrus tree
It’s copper
Growing rust
How long has it been since someone has checked?
How long will it take for the chair to be covered by sediment?
It’s interesting, how everything you see now will eventually be turned into fossil fuels
Burned to help others
I suppose that’s everything’s purpose.
There’s a jumping spider at my feet
Dancing around me
I wonder how I’m that big for it
I sit at the swing now
My father made it when I was six
The trees in front of me are cut
How sad
I liked those trees
Just before they bloomed, too
A droplet landed on my inner arm
Where I cut myself earlier today
My first time
Purposely, at least
The plum tree has bloomed
Cuttings sit below it
I wonder how many times it has been cut
How many times it had to work to grow it back
It always grows back
Right?
I’m twelve.