It's been a long while
but I've no trace of time.

I'm covered in brown mud,
piled over with rusty
red and orange leaves.

I lay at the foot
of what now,
is an old friend.

It's not easy
to get much sunshine
the large Oak's roots
are what both isolate
and keep my company.

I'd been loved
a long while
but that story
is an old life lived
a memory
that became a fantasy
time stretched
until it's bonds broke.

They tried
to recover me,
for a short while
for something
that mirrored
commitment
at such a young
and impressionable
age.

They hunted
in and out
of trunks
of the large Oak's home
never to find
where I lay.

Embedded
in October's leaves.

Yet,
distance
didn't make
the heart grow
fonder.

I'd been lost
and long forgotten
at the brink of dusk,
at the ring
of a more warming
love.

They came back,
once or twice,
to test
the shaded wood,
the darkened dirt.

They came back
until leaves
covered me
eye-high.

If they were still yelling
for the track of my presence
I could no longer hear them.

Even if
they were still scouring
built-down woods,
I could no longer
see them
allow them
to catch my eye.

Even if they still loved me
I could no longer feel them
covered
by cracked dirt,
and crumpled leaves.

The roots
had become my lover
now
grown to hug
my rounded hips
my heaping
dirt-covered
smile.

The wind
doesn't play with me
much
only to allow
a sweeping
kiss of leaves,
or to pick
the dirt coat
from my back
and donate
to a better cause
the warming
of a seed
that tiny
Christmas Rose.

I quit
listening
long after
I quit
looking,
looking for the boys
that had once
loved me.

Only then
did he come
sticky handed,
dressed in metal,
and armed
to save
a princess.

Engrossed
in his enactment,
poking swords
at my Oak
demanding
emptied branches
release
his Rapunzel,
I saw him
catch glimpse
of my rounded edges.

I
didn't notice
until
I looked up
into those
adventurous
eyes.

He knelt,
gigantic
in young age,
he plucked me
easily
from my big
Oak roots.

He wiped
dirt
from my body
slowly
and softly
like I was
new-found
treasure
Like I was
the gold
every child
hunts for
in their own
back yard.

He ran
his rough thumbs
on my edges
never lifting
his eyes
from his fingers
on that short
walk home.

He rinsed me clean
under
warmed water,
wondered
about my stories
then dusk came.

I was tucked
warm
under his protection
under that imaginative
mind,
and the boy
made me his own.