I Am A Tree

I am a tree. That’s not what I’m told though. The sign by the farm says I’m a Christmas Tree. It’s what the man who cut my mother down seethed and complained when she pricked his finger, what the old ones who’ve made it this far whisper weepily. But as I regard the oaks, the birches, and the maples I disregard their thoughts. If they are just trees, then I am Just a Tree. I’m green and I grow and I breathe and, sure, I’ll scratch you if you come too close but is that really my fault? I’ll be a tree until the day I die, I think back, as the wise ones who’ve given up mock me in the wind. 

It isn’t easy. 

I was a tree the day my friend was cut down. Need to clear space for the seedlings.

A tree when the families with legs took my family, who had no legs to run, from the ground. Kind to leave their stumps behind, so I can remember them.

A tree when creature after creature gawked at me, tugging my arms and calling me wonky. This one’s a good one! Never bought, but strong and good for hanging.

A little girl walked by me one day. I don’t remember what she looked like, I just remember her name as her parents yelled it into the same taunting winds of my sapling-hood.

“Lucy!

“I want this one, Papa!” as I felt the tug on my back with small little hands transform into rougher, older hands on my neck, grabbing, squeezing, hurting. 

“You sure?” the man asks.

I don’t think she meant to sign my death certificate. I think it was a casual cruelty, mere indifference. Which hurts more. 

“Yes.”

I am a tree, I repeat to myself as I watch him grab the ax, a nasty thing which took my blood, love, and youth from me.

I am a tree, I cry as the first strike is blown, man and metal rip into the flesh of my arms, legs, back, neck, and face.

I am a tree, I whisper as the pain overtakes me and my branches start to shake and sever, each one falling like a part of me gone. 

My mantra does nothing.

You’re theirs, a Christmas Tree, dying, the wise trees shout as I get dragged from my home in the mesh bag “meant to protect my beautiful leaves”, but they all know it’s a cage to keep me from pricking them right back.

I don’t like my new house. It’s not home. I want to go home. Where I can gossip with the willows, yell to the ginkgos, and sit peacefully with the magnolias.

Here I am alone. Here Lucy comes and puts paper all over my body. Here my flesh is littered with plastic, hanging from my limbs, my hair, my arms, a constant tugging. Here I am burnt with flickering lights like open flames which are child-safe, but not Tree safe. Here I am gawked at, like a thing in a zoo. Here, I am a Christmas Tree.