fail to be a factor

introspective.

I went to a lake. I saw everything; the fluorescent sky riveting above me. I saw everything. I saw how the water in the lake swayed back and forth, kissing the top of my feet then waving goodbye as it shrunk back to its original state. I felt the breeze caress my body, my face as it left traces of my hair sticking to my saliva coated lips. I said goodbye.

 

I kicked the licking waves and witnessed as the fish scattered away from my angry call. The algae cursed me back and stuck to my shoe like honey dripping from a jar. The fury bubbled curiously within my veins, and I watched. I watched my skin begin to ripple and tear. I knew.

 

It was an inquisitive sight to see, watching as my peach skin tore into pieces and gave way for something I was not expecting see. What I saw was not a figment of my imagination though vicariously I would have thought otherwise. Green. I began to see green erupt from my veins, breaking my bones, as the dripping blood turned into roots, stems, leaving a trail from the ground to my arm.

 

I was frightened. I ripped. I ripped at these growing vines but yet they continued to grow. They grew like weeds, they grew like the uncertainty I had for myself and for those around me. This oddity alarmed me as visions passed through my head of traveling circuses. I would not even be allowed into these. I would be dead.

 

I screamed. I cried so loudly for help as I fought against the growing shrubbery like tug of war for my own body"but I was losing. I heard the act of my self being destroyed by something I could not fight back. It was a malicious sound. It was a sound I would always remember and always be able to recreate. I am it.

 

I kicked the drenched dirt and continued my fight as my mind subconsciously took mental pictures of the episode: the many shoeprints digging into the pieces of broken, wet soil. The image of shredded plants scattered across the ground, being sucked in by the waves who still did not care. The tiny random Rorschach blots on my clothing as my tears stained every inch. All this; and I noticed my shoe was untied. I was delirious.

 

Yet still, I continued my banshee call. I waited for another hopeless soul, one caring enough to help, but uncaring enough to help a girl who was transforming into a plant. A plant of what? A plant of the society I grew up in? A plant of everything I had ever learned? A plant of every mistake I had ever made? What was I made of? What are you made of?

 

My body began to feel defeated. My sympathetic nervous system giving up on my very body no longer sympathetic to my needs. I knew I was losing. I knew this from the start, but I was in denial. I began to stand still and sob as the rest of my body began to transform. I had allowed my hand to become enveloped, now my forearm, then my shoulder. I stood as my tears began to give these plants of Earth the nourishment needed to grow. I was my only advocate for survival.

 

I became a spectator to my own defeat. I now watched as my feet had rooted themselves into the sand, as my ankles grew into one limb, forming a trunk. I was turning into a tree. A small tree. A tree of my own creation. I felt my heart begin to slow itself down, the oxygen slowly reaching the places it needed to be. I no longer need oxygen; I was a child of the Earth. My breath released the chemical that fed the rest of my growing body. This was preposterous.

 

I was a never-ending cycle of life. That’s all I was. The water continued to slip against the roots that, moments before used to be my feet. I apologized to the water. I had in anger, punished it for something it had not done. I felt now that it was taking its vengeance on me. Now I was becoming something with no soul. Not really, anyway.

 

And as the final tickets of my ride were being checked in, I took in one last breath. The last reward I was to give myself. I was now to be tended to by others. I was in peace. I was befriended by the water that now did not soak my shoes, but kept me alive. I was a home for others. I was now needed. Perhaps this was not Mother Nature’s punishment towards me, but a payment a consolation prize for losing the race in humanity. She was always such a giving woman.