Endurance— A Short Story/Poem

They cut me.

It felt like they were pulling me limb from limb.

They left pieces of me on the ground, as if anyone would go looking for me.

They won’t.

I’ve had brothers and sisters murdered and kidnapped before. No one ever came looking.

I trembled when they came for me, but I couldn’t run.

How can you run when someone has that much power over you?

They put me in the ground.

I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating.

But they left just enough of me to keep living. To endure.

I couldn’t see them, but I heard them. I felt them.

Poking me. Prodding me. Talking to me.

They were crazy.

I lost the will to live.

Alone.

Disembodied.

My spirit wilted.

But I withstood their torture.

My life was pulled from me, stretched from me against my will.

I started to feel it, the spark of new life.

I didn’t want to bring something so pure into this filthy, unnatural world.

But how could I not? How could I not love this new little one.

This little piece of my soul.

I felt when she peeked her head out of her hole and opened her eyes.

When she saw the world she was being born into.

I felt the acceptance from her.

She never knew anything else.

She never knew the feeling of the wind on her face.

The blue sky framing a yellow sun.

The shade of grey it turned before a storm.

She didn’t know better.

She loved it.

And they loved her.

I started to make sense of their words.

They praised her.

They praised me.

She was my daughter. She was a part of me.

Without ever meaning to, I started to stand up taller.

I started to feel proud.

I too forgot the wind, the sun, and the rain.

I started to feel content.

My leaves turned from yellow to green.

My roots gripped the soil

And drank the water they poured on me.

My daughter grew up beside me.

And together, we made our own lives.

On the table.

Next to the window.

In the living room.