THE  27Th  EDITIOn

The Mighty Oak
by Brendan Lentini

The sweat and tears dance in my eyes, baking in a makeshift sauna of my own design. The aquatic beads of lava scold my back, crimson ink filling the etches you’ve left once before. I stand, my fingers webbed, my toes coiling frigid linoleum. I don’t know who I am without you. I don’t know who I am with you. I don’t know who I am. Boundaries, definitions, labels, titles, jumbled letters carved into an Oak with his own selfish hoard of rings. How can the mighty Oak stay stagnant, bold, unweathered, and keep growing? The sun resorts to cowering behind clouds and cabins, and yet you keep growing. A drought so barren yet leaves so luscious, how do you do it? My skin bleeds, and I cry; your skin bleeds, and you grow more layers. Is the strength of the Oak resilience? The ability to adapt, to surmise such unruly compromises of one’s capacity to exist and say to the stars above, “I’m almost there,” no matter how far out of reach they may be, despite how impossible it is for the mighty Oak. He can not sever his roots, he can not unbind the ties to which he’s been forced to make, yet he is not held back. He grows upward, outward—branches bellowing out. He is stoic; his growth is not a measurement of one’s love. His nature is not defined by the squirrels who nestle within him, the caterpillar who selfishly consumes him for their own growth, nor is he defined by the birds who mingle and mate atop his head. The nest of eggs composed of his severed limbs serves as a home for the birds, but the tree feels nothing. He is not deemed a hero for providing homes for nature; it is expected, it is his role in society. It is his obligation set forth upon him without his consent, and yet, he doesn’t hesitate to grow. Why, oh mighty Oak, do you grow? Gratitude and appreciation are not languages you can comprehend, though I’m sure you know all too well of the emotions of destruction: your life force being drained from within, your outer layers being chopped away and transformed into a tool for other people to use. You do not grow for the pleasure of others. You could not care for the life dancing atop your fragile skin, nor could you even fathom the evolution of the caterpillar who selfishly took, and took, and took from you until all that’s left is barren branches amidst a creaky tree, forced to bare against the destructive winds who only want to see you crumble. And yet, you grow. You grow, you grow, you grow. You don’t grow out of spite for nature, to show them you’re still standing. You don’t grow out of obligation to the caterpillar, out of the guilt forcefully wedged within you telling you it’d be selfish of you to not let the caterpillar transform. You grow because it is your nature. Altruistic, indifferent, you grow. You grow because it is what you’re supposed to do. You grow because it is necessary. Yet here I stand, the water now cool, the wounds now scabbed, the message now clear. We will wither, decay, and cease to exist. We will be manipulated, guilted, made into a pawn for the desires of others—but we must keep growing, outward and onward, just far enough to grasp for the stars, just far enough for the last faint breath to travel to the glimmering heavens above, to tell the world: “I’m still growing.”