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// 11. To be a tree 
// Story: A Poetry Anthology 
// by Shaslan 
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I walk through the forest and my limbs flare with pain.
Each step is like agony as I rip my roots out again. 

The trees stoop low overhead, whispering their sorrow
Whispering that if I stop, it will all be over by tomorrow. 

If I stop and rest, and let my body do what it needs to do
Then I’ll be calm, and at peace, and part of the forest too.

The tangled leaves in my mane will flourish and sprout
And my skin will slough away and let the bark beneath out.

My hooves will split and make way for my thick taproots
And I’ll drink and from my wings will grow a thousand tiny shoots.

I’ll flourish with them, they whisper, just try it, you’ll see,
Your branches will mingle with ours in our green canopy. 

“No,” I reply, and my voice creaks, cracks and breaks,
I can tell I’m half-tree already, and resisting it aches. 

But I have to keep going; I have to keep pressing on —
If I can keep up this pace I’ll be there by dawn. 

Back where it began, the place that was my home years ago,
Where the draconequus I loved looked startled and said “Uh-oh.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked him, my voice still pretty and light,
Before it groaned like a branch in the wind late at night.

“I just sneezed,” he replied, “But I think something went wrong;
I didn’t mean to, but I’ve made something that doesn’t belong.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “After all, how bad can it be?
Some chocolate rain will fall soon — let’s wait and see.”

And so we waited, and we saw, and with horror we watched
As our friends’ skin gave way bark marked and notched.

The Princesses fell first, trying to hold back the infection,
And one by one the ponies of Ponyville went the same direction.

My friends were the last, save for my lover, sweet Chaos,
Who spent the last of his magic to rid my fur of swift-growing moss. 

And now I wander alone, trying to find my way through the glen
But everything is different, and I’ll never find my way back there again.

I’m looking for — I’m looking for — it’s hard to keep my mind clear —
All I can think of is silence, and peace, and the slow passing of years.

If I just stop now, if I just give up, I’ll be one of them, I’ll be home
The sunlight is sweet, there’s a space just my size, and rich is the loam.

It would be so easy, and — I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t quite remember 
What was I…it’s…it’s late, and the fire’s burnt down to the very last ember. 

And then, as I stumble through a thicket of brambles and stop short
I see them — my friends, my friends, their lives given for naught

A circle of five trees with space for a sixth, gathered close around one
A tree so tall and distorted and wrong it almost blots out the sun.

It bears dozens of fruits and with horn and antler it is crowned
And I cry out as it all rushes back — my friends all dying as my lover they surround.

“Help us,” they asked, and “I can’t,” I wept, “I love him, I can’t, I can’t.
“I won’t help you kill him, even if…even if it makes us all into plants.”

“It’s the only way,” Twilight whispered, a branch sprouting from her eye,
“Maybe she’s right,” Discord said, “Maybe I have to die.”

“No!” I cried, “No!” and I fled into the woods — unable to face them
Until now, when I want only to take root with the friends I condemned.

My time has run out, but now I’ve come to the end, I find
After all that has passed, I can accept it...I don’t mind.

I’ll die — or at least, my life will change, and I’ll move on
But I’ll be with my friends and my Discord, here in the sun.

I take my place in the circle, and turn my face upwards with a sigh, 
And the branches burst out of me and reach up to the sky.