Speaking Trees

     I step into the forest, all I want is to escape my stifling family. Sometimes I cannot stand love, caring, or attachment. These dark woods are my refuge. Each tree stands sentinel to my pain, rage, and anguish. The strong armed oak, my lover. The sorrowful tendrils of the willow, my mother. The tall, scraggly, mountain pine, my best friend. We talk through slow deliberation, electric thoughts sent through the soil from my toes to their roots. I wish I could be one of them, the trees, strong, peaceful, elegant, and everlasting. I slowly burrow my toes into the ground, the soft soil caresses my feet. Oak whispers to me. Zap, Zap, Zap. He sends his thoughts telling me that it is okay. I reach my arms up as if to pull nourishment from the sun and leave behind my problems. Reaching, reaching, I spread my fingers, tipped with dew and Willow sings to me. 

     Zap, Zap, Zap. I wish my real mother would do that. She never sings. All she does is tell me to stop hanging around my trees in the woods. I should make friends, but she doesn't know that I do have friends and all she is doing is pulling me away. I hear the whine of my sister's annoying voice lifted upon the wind that winds through my long hair like a white silky scarf. I don't hate my family, I just can't take them all the time. I wish I could become a tree. ZZZip. I send that thought to Oak, Willow, and Pine, but a different voice answers. It rasps Is that really what you want? I respond carefully and whisper I think so.