Pine

Andrea is a junior at Aurora University, majoring in Communication. Her work has previously been seen in Joliet Junior College’s Wordeater magazine. When not writing, she enjoys acting in theatrical productions, collecting tea, and going on walks while listening to her carefully crafted Spotify playlists.

It was the summer of 2009, and every kid in my neighborhood raced in their bikes,

their hands still sticky from opening frozen ice pops.

Exploring every premise of our trailer park,

scouring for something other than rusty train tracks and squeaky trampolines.

However,

like moths dancing around a hazy porch light,

we all gravitated to an enormous pine tree.

We fantasized about seeing every house and water tower from the tippy-top.

We were all eager to climb it.

Our tiny hands yearned for the next branch and the next.

Light-up Sketchers mounting up branches

as if there was a treasure chest at the peak.

We never got to see the top,

but we went so high and never fell.

And I remember watching in awe as I saw the tree lend her branches like arms

while the sunset spilled into the gaps between stems.

And still, we yanked her needles and crushed her pines.

The pine tree remains on the same corner of my neighborhood.

I’d liked to imagine her soft smile as she

witnesses the same children now driving cars instead of bicycles.

She doesn’t glow the same way she used to.

She seems to sit with sorrow, with a sort of pain.

She has not witnessed a child’s laugh in the last decade,

perhaps it's because she's more trunk than branch.

I’d like to imagine that she weeps during dawn

as she reminisces the past joy of giggles immersing her like fireflies.

How happy she must have felt to be loved even if it bruised her,

to give so much, yet expect nothing in return