The Tree from Hell That Feeds on Misery
A Poem about the Corrosive Effects of Hate
There was a malignancy growing there.
How long ago was the seed planted?
How many ages did it take to be forged?
How much desolation dripping on it,
Every moment of every day
Did it take for the created seed
To take birth in the miasma of misery?
Inside the walls of the house it impregnated
Two children held on to each other and wept as though
Their hearts were breaking
Lives were braking
Souls were aching.
The skies clouded over,
And misery fed the tree from hell,
A teardrop at a time
The leaves grew fat and sated
And heavy with the lust
That comes from, and with, darkness…and still it grew!
Inside the house
Hearts broke
Lives cracked
A family, wrecked
Disasters struck
In the mad scramble to apportion blame and drag perpetrators to court,
after the marriage broke up,
Battle lines were drawn and children forced to take sides.
Whose battles were these?
Who were the victors,
Who, the victims?
What was the guerdon,
What said the epitaph?
…the fatly growing tree fed off the fat of the fear
And the leaves grew and swelled
The branches broadened
As they absorbed and drank
The drops of sweaty fear and teary wretchedness.
The windows darkened
Mildew covered the panes
The leaves of the tree sprouted flowers
And they copulated with themselves
In a ceremony not of nature
But of malignant evil
And they crept up the walls and windows
And chortled with barely contained glee
As they caught up and drank the blood
That dripped from bleeding hearts
Not one drop, not a single drop
Was wasted
To the family inside the darkening house,
Eating, serving and feeding
Became a rite
A test of endurance
A gauntlet of frustrated hopes
A pathway to discontent
A recipe for bitterness
A pointer to toxicity
A blight on the souls of both
Server and served.
The Tree gloated
Bloated
Extended
Surrounded
Shoots shot into crannies and crevices
Leaves curled over ceilings and cornices
Branches broke the resistance of the walls
Roots sank deep deep into the soil
And dug out and shook the bones
In the graveyard
The house was built over.
The Tree laughed
Bones rattled
The sky heaved with fear…
There is a malignancy growing there.
The inspiration for this story is the very intriguing Monthly Theme for October Prompt on Ravyne Hawke ‘s brilliant, light-filled, new publication, Promptly Written.
Shoutout to Paul Causey, who has written on a similar theme:
