A backyard tree’s case of Stockholm Syndrome

My roots sink into the earth, finding a perfect, warm spot that I claim as my home.

How awful it sounds, to claim something of your own.

Karma circled back, when they kept me alone. 

I watched the tall branches of my father shackled to the ground. 

The soft leaves of my mother melted without a meep of sound.

The ashes of my brothers and sisters remained

on my bones, my logs, where they shall always stay. 

Now I am stood in front of a house, for it is not my home,

finding a poor child standing all alone.

‘For you’re just like me?’ I ask.

I yearn for a friend to call, but she is not like me, not at all. She is free.

Oh my lovers, how could you do me so?

For as I give you air to breathe, you chain me down, force my branches to bow down to you,

and my bark pouts. 

But you call me your lover, you hug me so dear, 

so why is your love, what gives me my fear?

I have no choice but to love you, you give me life, to stay in the soil, to stay and to thrive.

Though it was not my preference, and certainly not my voice,

I’ve learnt to love you, for all your wrongs, as you too,

I lost my freedom for.