just a simple story about a tree and nothing else.

Happiness.

A maple, beautiful and sturdy.

Wait…“That’s awfully close to my house.”

Branches scraping the siding

and dropping twigs and such on his new shingles.

Looming, it threatens to fall.

Actually, rotting within;

as season from season to season the

trunk withers and

withers. until

nothing ,not even the

rain

can return it from

decay.

With pail

and shovels

He feeds sand to silt

yet, Stubborn, the branches defiantly wilt.

Then termites, and mold, fungi, and rats.

Attracted by death, they seep into his walls.

He treats and mends and helps and begs

and grovels

without avail.

Enough is enough,

so with guidance and patience

,he frees

the trunk

from

its root

and this dreadful plant audaciously dares,

ignoring his calculated cuts and cares,

to instead take him with a sudden gust; tears

through his roof and all the way down; stares

inside his foundation which now bears

this new weight whose severed root already wears

and breaks up the slab and walls, now in utter disrepairs…

The tree, unbothered (already dead from the start

—on purpose to spite him for refusing to swing or climb)

finds “freedom” in leaving a mangled hearth.

He groans as he notices his puddled blood and shattered ribs.

The maple yells that healing just takes time,

and groans from its rot.

At least he gets a new house?

Kindness.