I use to be those trees. That green. I use to soar over the sky that settled over me, and envelop the people that looked down on me and up through me, and I inspired expansion in the smallest of creatures: the human. And they expanded me to beauty and awe and reverence and religion. I knew such unity with them. I felt their heart beat beneath my knotted breast. I felt their spirit pulling me from trees and soil and birds and beetles to immeasurable vastness. I knew how such unity was created, by simply strolling through me, on me, beneath me, into me. Like a whisper enters an ear and the spoken words are locked forever within the mind. Like a crying heard from far away that seems to echo regretfully within your own chest. Like embracing an old friend who is both a comfort and a pain. I know how such unity was created and broken. Like splitting the earth from the sky. A mother from her child. By walking out of me and never turning back. An indifference that begins the story of how I was made human—to the last inch. You do not know loneliness until all the edges of the world begin to fray and all the unity turns to dissipation. I grew quite lonely. Miserable. Like I had lost a part of myself when the humans turned and walked out. And then I actually began to lose parts of myself. No one ever expects such a thing: a friend to cut your right arm from your body, a father to take the left leg, sister an eye, lover your heart. Trees falling, falling everywhere and not a sound heard. The humans could not leave without cutting me from them. Cut from them any recognition of grandness in me.
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