Growing Pains

My roots snarl beneath me—

a knotted inheritance of blessings and bruises,

a fistful of names I never chose

but drag behind me anyway,

stones in my pockets,

blood singing its ancient commandments

through every vein.

They steady me, these burdens,

even as they tighten their pull.

This responsibility, this legacy—

a weathered hand gripping my wrist,

half guidance,

half shackle,

steadying me just long enough

to keep me from running.

Long enough for the gash

to heal.

As above, so below:

I reach toward the sun’s hot mercy,

growing without permission,

without preparation—

cracking the sky open

with every aching dream

I never dared to name.

Meanwhile I stitch myself,

thread by trembling thread,

to any soul warm enough

to keep me alive through winter.

Their kindness grows over my wounds

like moss glowing green

on the bark of a storm-struck tree.

A contradiction;

feral for the drumming of connection,

starved for a belonging

I cannot seem to swallow whole.

The holy evolution of an ungrateful daughter,

forever cursed with a hunger

no harvest can satisfy.

I am made of this:

the split atom of horror and gratitude,

an unholy marriage of war and peace,

driving my heels deep into the loam

so no man—no storm—

can wrench me from my family tree.

Which is ironic,

because I once raised the hatchet myself.

I severed what I could,

tore away the tender roots,

burned the remains

for a moment’s warmth.

But even fire cannot devour

what coils miles below.

No blade can silence the growing pains—

the want, the ache, the feral desperation

that pulls a mother’s roots

toward her child in the dark,

willing them

into bloom.

My grove holds me when the wind howls,

and feeds me from the sacred undergrowth.

I do not exist without them.

I could not grow without them.

There is no meaning without

this forest of blood and bone

that keeps calling me home.