I hold stones in my hands and lucidly wonder where to cast them. "I know this is a dream." My voice wavers, and the backdrop holds.

A breeze stretches through, seems to whisper, "And what good does that do?"

I pull my jacket tighter and soldier on. I know what happens next; it's a different dream, but still, the same. I know this dream. I know these trees. I have scraped my hands on their skin, climbed their limbs, cut confessions in the wood. My fingers trace the ridges, rough declarations emboldened in the oak. With my other hand, I slip the pads of my fingers against the smoothness of the rock. Stoic, cold.

"Forever," the tree says. My lips curl. Not the tree, I remind myself, me. I did this. I stripped the bark, cut lies in the flesh, me. Still, it's the tree that bears the punishment and it stands resolute as my fingers curl, as my hand shoots forward, as I beat the stone against the surface, again and again, until my fingers are bleeding and pulp sticks to my palms. I look up, blink through tears. Not enough.

"never," the tree sneers-- no, not the tree.