[Issue 2017.43]

‘Entwined’, J.N. Powell

Illustration © 2017 Rachel Linn

---

It is on Life’s forested path
that something suddenly traps me.
Trips me like a tree root,
shooting up from the ground.
Wraps around my ankles,
and multiplies—
dragging me down.

I fight at first,
but too many of the forest vines
creep closer and closer and slowly entwine.
They whisper:
My name is Beloved Belongings.
My name is Never Enough.
Me?
My name is swallowed up and gone forever.
I am one with the consuming vine.

My salvation is to see
the thousands upon thousands of others
entangled in cages of root and tree.
Each cage holds close a captive—
as captivated and captured as me.
They blink and breathe through their entwined vines,
barely alive.

With a smile, this becomes my mantra:
I am not alone.
With a laugh, this becomes my reason to be happy:
I am not alone.

Because:

I would rather be like everyone else
than different and alone.
I would rather be normal and the same
than free and alone.
So leave me to my blinking and my breathing.
This is my cage.
These are my things.
Go get your own.

© 2017 J.N. Powell

[Issue 2017.43]

Comment on the stories in this issue on the TFF Press blog.