A Tree: Sugarhill Boutique via ModCloth Black Peter Pan Sequined Collar Dress, Black American Apparel Waffled Leggings, Brown Urban Outfitters Lace-Up Boots, Vintage Bright Blue Parrot Necklace
A tree never seemed fragile until I saw one. The rivets in the bark. The stature, the frame, the body, the brittleness of something that could not be broken. But over time, in time, leaning, hunched, slumped by its own weight and the weight of the gravity of the world it took on. It was still warm when I touched it. Still breathing. I could tell that it hurt. And the crash was worse because I could feel the love. And that hurt even more. That the love felt like hurt.
Some Lyrics:
I’d swim across lake Michigan
I’d sell my shoes
I’d give my body to be back again
In the rest of the room
To be alone with you
To be alone with you
To be alone with you
To be alone with you
You gave your body to the lonely
They took your clothes
You gave up a wife and a family
You gave your ghost
To be alone with me
To be alone with me
To be alone with me
You went up on a tree
To be alone with me you went up on the tree
I’ve never known a man who loved me
-Sufjan Stevens “To Be Alone With You”
Oh
to be
not anyone
gone
this maze of being
skin
oh
to cry
not any cry
so mournful that
the dove just laughs
the steadfast gasps
oh
to owe
not anyone
nothing
to be
not here
but here
forsaking
equatorial bliss
who walked through
the callow mist
dressed in scraps
who walked
the curve of the world
whose bone scraped
whose flesh unfurled
who grieves not
anyone gone
to greet lame
the inspired sky
amazed to stumble
where gods get lost
beneath
the southern cross
-Patti Smith “Beneath The Southern Cross”
