We are all trees

The heat grips my bare feet, creeps up my body,

a low hum cutting through the red earth.

I am standing still, breathing. I am like a tree;

roots splitting the ground in half, holding and breaking

it apart, skin absorbing the sun’s glare.

The heat grips my bare feet, creeps up my body,

a bird crying in the distance. I look with questions,

wonder anything and everything about it–

Do you ever hear the wind scream when you fly?

The heat grips my body; I can feel the blood-coloured earth,

crying out to me. Don’t you see how you do nothing but stand?

I can’t move, I want to say, but my throat is too parched,

hair caught in the wind, shaking like leaves. I am a tree––

isn’t everyone a tree too? We are all watching the red dirt,

lose motivation to keep holding onto the roots, at

a bird eye’s view like, we’re not a part of it. We are just motionless trees.

The heat grips me fully, twisting, squeezing, choking; climbs

up like a creeper vine and weighs me down so I can’t move.

I’m standing still; I am crying for an earth who’s cried itself into drought

each year. Is this how it feels to watch yourself lose everything?