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ChendaWrites: Forest (Original Poem)

“And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”

–John Muir

Forest

*

My arms are as crooked

as tree limbs, my legs bowed

for the knots

in my knees, my spine

bent and awkward

for the vines.

*

In the center of my chest,

there is a forest

growing – a dense thicket

of pine needles, sharp

and piercing

my dermis, the soft

sponge of my lungs.

*

From my aorta,

roots tangle

like a maze, bleed sap, thick

like syrup, sticky

for the bruised fruit

of my childhood, the hard stone

of vodka scars.

*

But,

where there is a forest

there is life.

In this forest,

I am still alive, still breathing.

Damaged but not dead.

*

I will cut myself down to rise

again, fall and get back up.

I will

rise to fall, rise to fall.

*

Trees cast themselves off

to give birth to life, peel layers

to reveal layers,

shed their skins.

*

I will pray

to be a tree, peel my layers

open.

*

Learn

to break this wind.

Forest ©2010 Chenda Duong

Note: I wrote this poem during an intense and transformative period of growth and change I had when I first moved to Austin, TX in 2010. I was 26 years old at the time.