Be it DNA,

Be it memories,

Or little parts of the soul.

What is left over in a place we no longer go?

Growing up with the trees around you makes you one of them.

But what happens when you leave that shade they’ve always swaddled you in?

Does a tree in a forest still grow if you’re not there to witness it?

Does a tree hold the same memories of you that you do for it?

How many trunks I’ve slid my palm over remember the feel of my skin?

How many branches I look up into remember me sitting in them?

I’ll never feel those trunks again but I can still remember

How the roughness of the bark felt beneath my smaller fingers

As my fingers lengthened like the tiny branches of those trees,

I wondered if those trees had thought about and also longed for me.

And though I know I’ll never reclaim the pieces that I’ve left,

I take comfort in the thought that there are traces of me among them yet.