damn your naked arms

my wildly untamable aloe vera plant is deeply in love with the tree outside my bedroom window. aloe vera sits on the sill, his tiny green plant-arms press up against the glass, trying desperately to reach the hands of his lover--the enormous tree that lives on the other side. at night, when the wind is near, her branches quietly tap secrets on the window. i suspect thats how trees share love poems. sometimes she casts shadows that dance on my walls. aloe vera can't dance, but he watches thoughtfully. we notice even in her charcoal reflection, that she is beautifully grace full and beautifully strong.

they want to hold eachother, i can tell. sometimes when i lay in bed, i feel sad for them. In the summer, with windows open, they nearly touch. they breathe the same air. grow in the same sun. but this, this is the closest to embrace they'll ever get. the distance between them is a mere thin pane of glass-- small, and seemingly transparent, but distance none the less. and because of this distance... they'll never be real lovers.
- - -
i love this tree outside my window. partly because i see the same beauty my aloe vera plant sees in her. and partly because the painful love story her and aloe vera share.
sometimes i fear her gentle enormity. its a "god fearing" fear of amazement. i often dream of crawling out my window, and onto her branches, curling up to be rocked to sleep in her mighty outstretched arms. to be cradled. to hide in her leaves. to dance along her shadow. to bury myself beneath her roots.
i love that autumn has kissed her crimson and gold. I love that i can study each golden vein of her many leaves while laying in bed. I love that each tarnished leaf has a memory. a beginning. a story. memories and stories i ache to hear, but somehow already seem to understand.
i woke up the other day to notice her naked.
i literally felt panic, when i realized her last leaf left had fallen dead to join the others on the earth bellow. i secretly want to scotch tape them all back on. i hate that's she's naked. i hate that her branches can no longer reach inside my window. i hate the grey horizon of the soon imposing november sky. it doesn't do her justice. it robs her of the beauty and glory i clung to.
i hate that her naked limbs remind me that my own world is changing. her spar city reminds me of the inevitability's of transition. i hate change. i hate that her beauty is a memory.
As this season passes, I am reminded of the distance between you and i. i am reminded together we are getting ready to fall. i don't want us to be a memory. i dont wan't us to be separated by a thin, god-awful pane of glass. but i remember i cant bare to reach out to you. a dying tree.
your shadow dances on my bedroom wall, and i have to look away.

Sometimes death takes many forms,
even while alive.