At the roots,
the weight is unbearable.
It sits in my chest,
cold and heavy,
pressing down like I’m made of stone.
Some mornings I can’t breathe.
Some mornings I wonder
if I’d be easier to forget
if I just stayed still,
if I just let it win.

But I climb anyway.

My hands scrape the bark,
splinters biting like the thoughts
that scream I’m not enough.
The climb is slow and exhausting.
Every step feels like carrying
a storm inside my chest.
Part of me wants to fall back down,
to sink into the roots
and disappear,
but another part,
the part that refuses,
keeps reaching.

Halfway up,
the darkness still follows me.
It wraps around my arms,
my legs,
pulls at my hair,
whispers that the weight will never leave.
And yet, through the leaves,
light spills in,
blue and sharp,
like air I almost forgot existed.
And for a moment,
the heaviness loosens just enough
for me to keep going.

Higher still,
the branches cradle me.
The bend like I bend
under every night I can’t sleep,
every morning I can’t face.
I am tired. So tired.
But still, I climb,
because the alternative
is lying still in darkness
and letting it swallow me whole.

At the crown,
the air is thin, trembling, alive.
The shadows below stretch long,
but they cannot reach me here.
For a moment,
I breathe without the stone.
For a moment,
my chest feels empty in a way
that isn’t suffocating,
that is free.

I stretch my hands into the light,
and it burns, and it sings,
and it reminds me of
that freedom exists,
messy, fleeting, and terrifying,
but real.

And though I know
the roots will call me back,
and the stone will wait there again,
I also know this:
I am strong enough to climb,
to rise,
to reach the treetops again and again.
Even with the shadows,
I can still stand in the light.