the roots of reverie

our love was a sapling,

thin-stemmed,

fragile,

poised in quiet confidence.

it was indescribable,

the bliss i felt,

growing in your taciturn nature.

how you opened slowly,

that subtle offering of what was left of you

alluded promises of all four seasons.

it was something to believe in when i had none.

the way you brought my head to the clouds,

i thought we'd

sore to the heights of redwoods,

but as the years have shown,

circumstance, fear, and timing,

or, bluntly, our excuses,

have their own unfolding.

it would have been so easy to

become a weeping willow

after you left,

to bend over a placid pond,

bow my head forever,

carry the burden of losing you.

i searched endlessly for solace,

and found a paltry sum,

in seeing myself

as a tree made for mourning,

my sorrow unquestioned

like a language i invented.

it felt poetic to feel sorry for myself,

wearing grief like a scarf.

but i'm too sophosticated for things that are easy,

a big reason for my pull

toward you.

your esoteric nature

disinterred from me

a curiosity that could

solve the origins of the universe.

i thought it better

to become a banyan,

a tree so complex,

growing inward, outward, and upward,

all at once,

as if my infrastructure,

my skeleton,

must expand to contain everything

we've ever said, hoped for,

and sadly, failed to become.

you don't know

how vast my root system is,

because how could you,

over there,

but i assure you,

it's miles wide,

nurtured by the

dossiers of promises

we made with words

and interlocked pinky fingers,

but have yet to realize.

still, these latent wishes occupy me,

becoming stalky and sinewy memories that

tangle themselves into the dominant fabric of who

i am turning into.

the deeper my roots get,

the more i come to understand

that becoming a banyan is a

showcase of persistence,

not one of passivity.

the hopes, dreams, and forecasts

you sprinkled on my tongue,

serve as my nutrients.

they enrich me,

in thought alone,

even when none have transpired.

i wish you could see,

or merely believe,

the stretches of

my subterranean longing.

it traverses without asking permission,

moving the earth beneath me,

the subtle trembles

i doubt you can feel.

if you pressed your ear to the soil

you'd hear it,

the low murmur of your name,

echoing in darkness.

above ground,

my branches grow past the limitations

of genetic coding,

reaching far beyond my natural span

because you exist at an emotional distance

i'm not certain

if you chose or inherited.

the way you leave the door

ajar enough for me to notice,

your hesitancy,

your withholding,

how you receded from what we were becoming,

these are personifications of old wounds

that taught you to keep love

at arm’s length.

i grow alone,

to become your canopy,

to give you shade,

to pull you closer,

to make the distance less dismal.

and when your winds blow,

i remain here,

unshakably yours.