When a Tree Loses its Leaves

I fear that I am dying. The weather is changing again. The sun takes longer to wake, and to warm my bones. My roots whimper from under the cold earth, threatening to upend me. Each breath of the wind a veiled threat, taking my leaves, enticing them along invisible rivers to some unreachable place, as if they are stubborn teenagers running from home. Soon I shall lay naked and barren, unrecognizable, no longer the beacon of life. Is this my destiny? To bear a solemn reminder of this desolate wasteland, bathed in gray and black?

To wait for the unbearable weight of winter white, tentacles snaking under my withered bark and daring my frostbitten limbs to shudder, so they can snap them off and cry havoc to the unsuspecting strangers below. Why must my children leave? Have they forgotten how much I care for them? Each one that falls is a knife wound, leaving me drained and anemic, a blood starved vampire. Quiet sorrow simmers within me as I watch them crushed and swept up, a forgotten toy no longer played with. I would guard them with the fury of a junkyard dog, but they forsake me at every turn. Their lush colors turn from brushstroke to graffiti, angry with the world and determined to coat everything in their rage, a spattered canvas. As fall approaches, so goes my grace, replaced with a bitter pill forced down by a hostile environment, as the elements turn from a welcoming embrace to a test of brutality. I must endure.