Flavours

Like words caught on tips of tongues, you are a flavour I remember, but cannot seem to taste. Perhaps my buds have shed; changing seasons bringing forth fresh blooms while wilted petals fall and decay, becoming soil once more. I am but a tree trying to recall what colours she used to produce in this specific Garden of Eden.

Green envy and red angry thorns no longer burst from my branches. Only syrup oozes from these cracking limbs and callusing hunks of bark. Too many storms have I weathered to not bend with even the slightest of breezes, now. Many a snapping lightning strike has softened my ever knotting grain. The twisted Willow you probably remember is still weeping, but for very different reasons do her cascading vines shake and heave.

My leaves no longer house spiders.

I was never the mighty Oak you may have wanted to envision, but perhaps my drifting gentleness will suite you better, now that winter has become spring and we can finally blossom together in compassion, not competition. Oh, how sweet will the scent of our flowers be, sickening perhaps, but only almost. Your heavy bouquet, no matter how dangerous, has always been undeniably intoxicating; familiarity is starting to gather itself at the back of my throat.

My buds remember you after all, it would seem, but your zest no longer offends me, for I have developed a love of all things spicy. How many cups of sugar, though, must I pour down your throat to mask the acidic burn I must have left behind?

Years of heavy rain have made me much more palatable, I promise.

I don’t want to be your poison anymore.

I want to nourish your roots.