My fingers hurt, but not as bad as before.

Maybe because the numbness is going away and the actual pain is revealing itself.

But sometimes pain like that is good,

if only because it means we are healing...

...I never watered my curiosities,

I never let them explore or wander in the sunlight,

I never let roots take hold and spread

I just cut off any branch that saw too much of the world

or let the world see too much of it.

Pruned and plucked the leaves that I thought might have been a little out of place

even though they were just trying to be.

Now I’m just a straight trunk sticking out of the ground.

Roots retracted, no limbs or foliage.

And you wouldn’t plant me in your garden,

well, maybe you would have

because the packaging at the seed shop might have shown a glorious vine with bright crimson flowers and a propensity for hummingbirds to buzz about.

But if the me I am now was the only one you ever saw in real life,

you would think I was a weed,

And pull me straight out of the ground by the only pathetic little root structure I have left.

And if you were smart you would salt the earth on that plot because, if not,

I would come back.

And I would bring you misery for making me again.