I skinned my knees on the pavement of your playground. Slowly, tenderly, I pick out the pebbles
and wipe the blood away. Your ghostly cold fingertips hand me a bandaid but I’d prefer to let the
wounds air-dry. I get up and run, you are but a distant shadow.

Running into a wooded forest the brambles are but a scratch as they brush against my tattooed
sleeve of places and memories I’ve collected on my flesh. I fail to notice the sting, this freedom,
this air on my face is all mine and I love the sounds, sights, and vision I possess.

This path isn’t littered with self-doubt or preconceived notions of an acceptable way to show up.
That isn’t to say I don’t think about how your body would feel against this trunk, our lips pressed
in a warm prayer to the wooded gods of the ages past. I know it is my time to sit in the shadows
and read the history, feel the dirt careen through my fingertips, and let my legs fall into the earth
as roots. I am breaking the rules of photosynthesis and breathing my own air into my lungs and
growing vibrationally at rates that have yet to be recorded.