the sadness grows from the inside. you feel it a little bit everyday, but you don't mind it. it's small and insignificant. but that's at first. the tree grows. it grows and grows until you've got yourself an environment of woe, and you realize you've taken care of that more than you have yourself. when you harbour a world of it inside you, it's no longer insignificant, is it? not until the tree grows taller and harder skin and its branches no longer tickle your insides but tear through your organs and your flesh do you realize it's bigger than you, and worse, it's bigger than itself. today, it's everything but a small patch of earth. it takes over your being, a snake wrapping around its prey and suffocating it to death, that's what it's done to people and you let it do it to you too, and now you're gasping for air as it ravages you from inside out with nothing but the tears on your eyes and lips to accompany you and you're left to drown, thinking, what planted it?
YOU ARE READING
I, Girl
Poetryi am my own god, my own spirit, my own prayer. -- a complete series of 44 poems concerning girlhood, dread, and catholic guilt.
