POETRY

The Tree of Me …

A Free Verse Poem

will you water me and care for my most sensitive of natures. nurture love and cherish my tender sapling limbs. your deepest thoughts. like water. a quench for the heightened thirst i lust for. feed my earth with passion. nourish. my youthful charm a thrall. will you place the truth of me beneath the highest of spring welkins for April rains to purge me of my faults. my green leaves beckon with the colour of my innocence each darkened breath from off your lips a game. all sighs stifled by the molten glass dripping from the sharpness of your harsh-berating tongue

how now — for —

you took my gift of life and let me starve and robbed me of my youth. and then abused it. my young flesh drenched by all your sweet-bitterness of words. a viper’s slick of tar and Eider’s down —

but still you would not let me go.

you gave me just enough to drink. not fill my cup. but drown my pot in selfishness. to let me think i was deserving of your hate. forgiven. then denied. parched. then left to wither. a wilting demon. until i overheard your lies —

then i grew tall. flourished even. my tendrils strong enough to reel you in and take revenge

i so desired — but i still hurt

my foliage curls and whimpers the black of wild crow’s feet indented in my bark. i do not bloom with youth but gnarl with age. soaked by the passing of my years. yet still i grow. self-watered. wise. but on my own. the only plant within my fertile orchard.

yet i still wish to long entwine. but am unable. for my roots curtail. are damaged. far too broken to ever trust again. the blighted legacy of you feeds on. despite my down to earth and rational of natures. my emotions pollinated by a lack of self-esteem. the tree of me alone. and lost. in waiting. forever. ruined.

© Sally A Mortemore 2023 — All Rights Reserved.

Thank you as always for taking the time to read my work 🙏