Tangled Roots

I thought my life was infertile.

The weeds-thick as blood.

Blood they sucked from my roots.

Towering over me,

drowning me in pressure.

Shielding me

from any hope

of sunshine.

It had been so long.

“Is sunshine even real?

What color is it?

Does it smell good?”

Back then, I couldn’t say.

Too weak to find out.

Too withered to care.

One day I felt a tickle at my roots.

Unable to see beneath the dirt,

I dug.

In doing so,

I had to expose some wounds

that I had previously

worked so hard to hide.

Glimmering as if fresh,

and much deeper than I remembered.

I questioned whether I should continue.

After digging deep down

past all the dirt and debris,

I realized the tickling

was from a tangling of roots

that weren’t just mine.

I looked up

for the first time in a while

and there you were.

That’s when I remembered

what the sweet caress of sunshine

felt like.