Like you,
I read "The Giving Tree"
When I was young.
And I drank in that definition of love
With my roots.  
I wanted to be that tree.
I wanted to give that love
To everyone; to someone.  
And you found me
And carved your heart on mine.

I have the scar.

And I felt loved
For a while.
It felt good to give;
It felt good to see your smile,
For a while.  
It felt good to give you shade and shelter,
Stripping and shedding
Everything,
For you.
And it became our life.

So how could I blame you for the way you were treating me
Shearing me
Expecting me
to Give,
to Love,
to Serve—
Even when you no longer recognized me?

The rings on our fingers
Spoke nothing of the truer rings,
The rings recorded in me.  
It took many years to learn,
Many years to chop away at that old definition,
Many years to rip away the rotting bark,
Many years of knowing that
A tree is always there because
A tree’s roots are stuck within the ground.

But I am not a tree.