by Levi Bean

Several years ago I said that time passes us by far faster than a tree can grow, and that we each grow in solidarity. It’s sharp in its violence, a frantic performance like unearthed, swaying palms, with fronds many times the size of our “quintessential” humanhood. Time devours the fruits of our labors and spares us the indignity with days that knead the knots in our lives like warm dough.

Several years ago I stared at a sliver of sky, sat neath interlocked willow branches carving out most of the fading blue. It was the oldest in the glade, branches sagging like the heavens themselves resisted its leaves with heavy-handed swings. It was a place for gods, for the shunned stories chased down by fires and pitchforks. A place where I, like those brazen tombs, found refuge for a time, shielded by the fibrous boughs. To me, the bark had seemed thousands of years old, flaking off in capricious waves–rhythmic and repetitive–while infinite rings ran their way throughout its trunk (though that last part is mere speculation).

Several years ago I drank the sky in its entirety, flourishing through that pinprick of transient joy that enraptured me in its delusion. I would have drained the world of color if I could, inhaling the blues of the benevolent spirits who lived like me–a vessel on the verge of being filled. A Wyrd rune, if you will.

Those golden days seemed a distant fantasy–as the costumes we wore as children outgrow us; as the crowns we paraded melt in the starlight; as the temperamental world crumbles before our very eyes. The shadows grow long as the sun sets, hallucination ribbons tangling the threads of a past that yearns with arms outstretched. The past evades as I claw at nothing but air, forgetting myself as I frolic the fields of mind, past a scavenger’s trove to the pit where only ghosts reside.

To remember running free is a comfort most can afford, yet few can rediscover; as I lie tongue-tied by the bitter taste of happiness–unable to look yet tantalized by the remnants of reverie that call to me as they have to others. A solivagant whom no one can name.

I lay, presently, among the weeds and willow, ripped from dollhouse hallucinations. I wanted to sit up, to remove myself from this existence without a name, but the willow tree weighs on us all–leafy fibers swaying like the coarse hair of beckoning angels. The grass where I lay left an alcove such that a few more years and a flourishing burial would solely remain. A ‘me’ shaped crater in disturbance.

A shaft of light fell across my chest, my heart beating a brief pulse of hope… before the winds and leaves rearranged their disposition. Yet just as suddenly, with a swish, the static became temporary: A singular leaf falling softly as snow. It dived through cosmic strings, weaving a pattern in air like one might knit the sky. I watched it with the same sort of fascination as one watches a spider and its web–gossamer filaments vibrated by the whims of one tiny creature. It drifted the same path the light had followed, disquieting the idyll my brain had teased to the surface.

Unsettled, I plucked it from the air with a quick flick of the wrist, clasping it between fore-finger and thumb. Cold to the touch like cinder blocks in the snow. How strange on such a pleasant spring day, my distant thoughts warned, always looking for the worst in the world.

It was almost disappointingly ordinary, a sentiment I’m all too familiar with. ‘Green’ in the way I’d immediately imagined when describing it as green. A thin fiber running through the center and branching into separate trees of their own right. There really wouldn’t be much more to say, if it weren’t for the seed.

It was alone–save for the leaf–and just beginning its bloom. A bit like a baby pinecone in stature. I marveled at it, how something so small and vulnerable could flourish in a world sowed with landmines was beyond me, but we do what must be done I suppose. And even so, it’s not like every seed upon this willow will sprout–nor does every seed have equal chance to.

It seems so tired, and I am tired, and as it faces impossible beginnings, I face the distance that once stretched into forever but now only runs away because sometimes running is the only choice we have left. The seed feels heavy and I place it on my chest, feeling it rest upon ribs that rise and fall like angel wings. It burrows deep within me; sinking through skin and bone and nesling into the space above my heart where the callouses meet and break and form again.

And just like that… the seed awoke.

Roots–sprung forth.

They snaked their way through veins that flickered like weary fireflies, expelling from a body what truly was lost long ago. Bones strung up on heavy-wired mounting like the frame of a scarecrow; flowers sprouting along shoulders, bringing the assurance of scarlet blood that barely flowed; voices that rushed pass in currents, indiscernible. The end truly is a cacophony to behold.

The concentric circles of my rib cage went next, weaving together neath soiled flesh–twisting and interlocking as if to drown out the worldly hum attempting to penetrate skin so brittle and cooling by the minute. My hands mirror best they can, laying crossed along a diaphragm that only shivers in return. It murmurs brambly as it worked overtime supporting a body disengaging from the mind; its autonomy relinquished to another otherworldly entity. It knows the end, as do I. Laying strewn in this tomb I used to call a body, my chest heaves under the weight of the seed taking root in my bones, the forest and its mighty vengeance. Maybe, I think with quiet ease, we’ve found another chance.

I exhale softly as the world sparkles, sun peaking through the leaves once more.

I never did realize how beautiful…

About the Author

Levi K. is a sixteen-year-old junior from the Bay Area. They’ve written numerous short stories, essays, and most recently, a poetry collection.