The Unraveling Tree
How I became the forest
I was a child of stillness,
spun from the silk of moths,
a quiet beneath branch shadows,
roots clutching the earth’s edge.
Rain made a cathedral of my skin.
I sang in syllables of moss,
chiming green, heavy with sap.
The soil called me by name.
Each dawn, I unbuttoned light
from the belly of the sky,
threading sun onto my shoulders,
a cloak stitched with dew.
My hands grew to bark,
fingers knotted into oak veins,
nails sharp with ambered ache.
I held birds in my chest.
Wind carved its hollows in me,
whispered songs of rivers’ ends,
their hunger a copper taste,
their promise a distant mirage.
Night never asked my permission.
It folded me into its ink,
stars bleeding through my branches
like unspoken confessions.
I have no blood but sap.
No breath but frost’s exhale.
The forest taught me silence —
a tongue where nothing breaks.
© Ani Eldritch, 2025.
Thanks to Chrysa Stergiou and her team at Catharsis Chronicles for hosting my work.