The Forest on the Day you Left

The air is a raw thing against my skin

and I feel the forest aching, sore under my feet.

It pulses through me, how wrong the trees feel, but they don’t abandon me to this.

They go on aching,

Pulling what they can of this poison from my body back into their roots

until the underbrush is built of my own aching particles,

whispering on the wind that this part is over, whispering: “over, over, over…”

so soft I almost don’t hear it over your deafening absence.

Wrapping myself in branches like blankets,

we are raw, the forest and I.

We mourn together,

the forest and I

AI interpretation by Maggs Rose Quartz Chaos

Alexa is a Pacific Northwest based poet who’s work has been previously published in Beyond Words Magazine and Scissortail Quarterly. To see more of her work, find her on Instagram at @alexa.hoggatt