What I dream of is a tree.
A tree one hundred feet high and fifty feet wide,
I dream of that tree.

I come to that tree in the middle of a forest,
In the middle of an uphill climb.
I come to the tree when I need it most.

I dream of the day where I come to the tree and lean against it.
I lean against the tree,
And it does not shake.

The tree wraps its rough brown arms around me
And the bark sheds way to skin,
The trunk sheds way to a body,
The leaves shed way to a head.
I dream of that tree.
The tree that sheds way to a person.

I want arms so strong they can hold the heaviest of burdens.
Arms that reassure me.
I want arms that do not know the cold sting of a blade,
The warm trickle of blood.
I want arms that can hold me tight and tell me “I’m here, there is no need to worry”
Not, “I know how it feels”.

I want the purity of naivety to pour over me.
Pure, untouched bliss to hold me.

I am tired of the blood stains on my shirt and the tears on my shoulder.
I want to leave a stain.
I want to spill tears.
I am tired of accepting them,
For every tear that falls on my shoulder,
The weight grows heavier.
The pain grows stronger.
The pain for those around me.
For those leaning on me.

I want to lean on them,
But they are just paper cut outs.
Trees with no roots,
Or roots that only run the surface.
Leaning on those who lean on me will only lead to me falling.
For these paper cut outs will fall over in a stiff wind.

I dream of a day where someone looks closer.
When a tree that has two eyes,
Two arms,
A nose,
Two ears,
Ten fingers,
And five senses,
Looks at me,
Reaches out their long skin covered branches,
And as the pads of their fingers meet my broken skin,

The tree will tell me to lean on them,
Because they looked closer.
They looked deeper than my exterior
And on the inside I’m a little sapling.
I am a sapling with the weight of the world on my little leaves
And it is breaking me.

The tree will tell me to rest.
They will give me shade and shelter.
Feed me with their fruit.

I dream of the day I will not weigh another sapling down,
Because if one more sapling’s roots are pulled from the ground,
If their leaves fall,
If their stems grow brown,
And their roots fall onto me.
I will collapse —
For I no longer have the strength for two.

I no longer even have the strength.
For one.