And there it stood, the lonely tree amongst the memorabilia of a not-so-memorable yesterday.

The bark was peeling, and in some odd way, this tree resembled the not-so-white picket fence that enclosed this wasteland. Brown paint chipping, and I couldn't help but help it along with my nails. I dug at the bark of the tree with my fingers, and clawed away at it's skin.

Tiny leaves were shaken loose from the branches by the blowing wind. It hummed and moaned and screamed as it danced its messy, particle-filled dance around the tree. My tree.

I wondered if plants could feel cold as I noticed it's branches almost stripped bare of their green.

Maybe I'll find out in a few tomorrows.

It's roots digging deep, deeper than mine ever will. Clawing, scratching, digging at the dirt beneath it. Roots entwined within black soil, and worms, and ants. Hundreds upon hundreds of little ants.

Clawing at the dirt and I at a brown bark.

And I noticed an inscription of love upon this wreck of a tree as I peeled it's chipping-paint skin. CM + AV scratched inside a heart. A love scarred on it's skin. A love scarred in time. I ran my fingers along the engraved names, around the outline of the heart, and I wondered.

I wondered just how long this had been here. I wondered if these people were still alive, still in love. I wondered if they were ever really in love to begin with.

I'm sure it knew the answers to my questions, this tree, whose time has been all but spent in rainy afternoons and cloudless nights.

Years upon years, decades, centuries even spent beneath the same moon, and stars, and sun, and rain, and wind, and sky. A stationary life. A solitary life.

This tree has seen people come, go, live, die, love, hate, and this tree has done the same along with them.

I chipped at the bark of this tree, this paint, this skin, and I realized I, too, am one of the people it's seen come and go.

I've come, and now I'll go.

I'm sure you're sick and tired of us, anyway.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

This is an essay I had to write for language arts. You see, I have a hippie-teacher, and the woman gives us "nature topics" to write about monthly. This month, we had to write about a tree. I, being too lazy to go outdoors, simply made the entire scenario up. We weren't supposed to do this, but, oh-fucking-well.

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Listening to: "Let the Poison Spill" by The Faint