Bonsai

Hardwired for pain, never joy

Rooted in this forever grief

I, a colorless scrap of existence

I starve to death for love

But when touched I can’t feel it

I can’t FEEL it

And I can’t show it;

Nothing nests in my limbs

Watered by such crooked love

I grew a crooked, stunted tree

The Christmas tree

That no one wants to buy

My patchy bark hides raw churning agony

As eyes slide past with indifference or disgust

To rest on trees more everything than me

Solitary and still I stand

Forever on the outside looking in

At other trees proudly placed at the heart of the home

People think trees can’t feel

But pain is imprinted into bark; an imperfect fingerprint

Once, long ago, I learnt to cry without noise

So that no one would know I hurt

I hurt

I hurt

Now with peeling bark, imperfect, dying, unsaved

I howl in the dead of night, without noise

Something hard slowly unraveling

And there’s no one to hear

No one left to know

Except Wolf

NOTE: Wolf was an imaginary creature who lived in my chest – it was both a companion so that I didn’t feel so lonely and at the same time my attempt at creating a positive self-image (so instead of feeling like a dog – which I felt was negative, I turned part of myself into a wolf with all its positive attributes such as strength).

Original version written 2006