As a Real Thing and as a Metaphor

I love you but I’ve chosen darkness he said to the tree as he chopped it down. He held back tears.

He used to play in the tree as a child. He used to run around it and kiss girls under it. He used to climb it and fall off of it. He used to cry under it when his parents fought. Or cry for it during thunderstorms. He lost a basketball under it. And found a human skull buried near it. He once got stuck in it. Bees built hives in it. He never got stung but his Vietnamese friends did. Birds lived in it and nursed their young in it. The neighbors were always afraid the tree would fall on their homes and expensive cars, temporarily upsetting their upper-middle class suburban dreams until their insurance agents showed up. There had even been a petition signed by half of the members of the neighborhood association demanding its immediate removal. (Two-thirds of the members were required to sign.) He carved haiku into its bark and never read them to anyone. He read them to the tree. He loved the tree. It loved him.

But the lumberjack’s daughter was irresistible.