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Forest

I love the forest, but the forest does not love me.

I protect her, but she bites back at me at every turn.

She does not want me here. She knows my kind.

She must protect what is left of her. I know this, so the nettles sting less.

But still I persist, I keep coming back. For her sake and mine.

She needs me after all.

Some days she is glad to see me. She remembers when I swung on her branches in the early morning dew.

And chased foxes through groves of sweet-smelling trees.

But this isn't why I come back.

I know there will be more bad days than good.

To chase that feeling again would as fruitless as trying to catch a wild hare.

Always close but yet out of reach.

She is dying. Slowly, very slowly. She knows and I know.

I've walled her off. Kept others from venturing as far as I. I try to tell her she is safe now.

She won't hear me.

Her roots don't go as far as they used to. The trees on the outer fringe are starting to wilt.

But when I visit I bring water. I feed what is left in the hopes of easing the pain.

It doesn't help.

I tell stories when I visit. I recall all of the time I've spent enjoying her beauty.

And she listens, always. No matter how she felt about me she always listened.

I wanted her to remember.

One day I went with my water and found the forest was brambles and dead bark.

Save for a single speck of bright green in the very middle. I tried desperately to get in.

But to no avail.

I was not there when she died. I was told after the brush had been swept away.

And for a long time I was angry and hurt. I did not understand why she would leave without goodbye.

But then I realized...

I could not bear to see the last leaf fall from the last tree in her.

I was spared the agony of seeing her defeated.

So that her trees could florish in my memory.

I loved the forest and the forest loved me.