Sylvan Timber

When I was old enough to think I could fall, I fell and fell hard. I fell breaking apart, splintering from my once whole to marred. A year or two after that I realized that I've been grafted like a tree, cut limb to limb. Every year I've been attached then reattached to another branch, another twig of whim. Every time I reach out my stickly hands and grow tightly to another branch. They lie, or they die, they leave or they stay to long, they dim me to blanch. I've been cut by the whip and tongue graft, with one sharp blade. I've been cleft, I've been left, I've been bereft but I've been made. My appendages have held a few different varieties for bloom. I think I can be well if cut again, maybe I can make more room. They call me a scion but I feel tired of all my deep wounds they slice and dice deep within my soul. I am tired of healing, tired of yielding, tired of trying being ripped apart then growing over that hole. You don't have to be hybrid to know what your twigs were and how they adhered growing among the fray. You don't have to be grafted to know we've all been cut, we rebuild, or we meld into that orchard in the brae. If you think about it, we've all been grafted, attached here and there then ripped away. We don't have to be a tree to know how it hurts to grow then watch them slip away.