People loved you just the way you were

Before you got wrapped up and fascinated by your imperfections, certain you could help others with theirs, you visited a tree in Brookdale Park.

There was a kinship there, its sprawling long branches would bounce in the wind and you could balance thirty feet out away from the trunk, only a few feet off the ground. You played and climbed and jumped, it was soft and sturdy.

Trees of some kinds can inosculate, and this was one

Actually in its desperate tenderness it was reaching out for another, and in some cruel landscape design its nearest friend was too far away.

If they do reach they grow together, if they don’t eventually the burden of its reaching becomes unsustainable and that arm gives way to the strain, to the weather.

What I mean to say is not that this tree like you has reached so desperately outwards in its need for camaraderie.

What I mean to say is this tree is so inspiring of movement and play and joy, so welcoming with its safe sprawling arms for you to climb and be a part of,

what I mean to say is this tree was never doubted in its perfection, or faulted for its effort,

It was never anything short of loved