Chip Newton

English Poetry

My Progression

Sitting here, under the trees

I realize I am alone.

My gaze drifts up to the sky

Watching the delicate dance of falling leaves,

And for a moment, I wish I could die

Knowing that you are gone; that you have left me.

Quietly, I observe everything around me.

My stunned silence goes unnoticed by the trees;

Their existence wouldn’t change if I chose to die.

Why am I so afraid to be alone?

Will I fall, dried and dead, like the leaves

When they end their brief lives of glory in the sky?

And what of my glory, my moment in the sky?

It wasn’t enough to keep you here with me.

You left me, dry and crumbling, rotting with the fallen leaves.

I’m worth as much to you now as the mold that grows at the base of the trees.

A flattened mushroom, left alone.

Like the tall woods around me, you won’t notice when I die.

But why exactly am I going to die?

I stop and think about this, under the star-dotted sky.

Is there no one else in the world for me but you and you alone?

Perhaps there is more value than I had thought in me.

I am not just a spore left to fertilize these trees.

I have more control over my life than these drifting leaves.

You aren’t the only one who can leave.

I can choose to walk away, not to die.

Rather than the mold, I will be the tree.

Reaching high, stretching myself into the sky.

I can learn to accept ‘me’

On my own, not alone.

So go ahead, go off alone.

Follow your fate like the crisp, dead leaves.

I won’t fall apart just because you leave me.

I won’t even notice if you decide to die.

I have my own life, living gloriously in the sky,

And I am far above you, like the tall, strong trees.

So now it’s you who’s alone, and wishing you could die.

It’s you who gazes at falling leaves, as they suicide from the sky.

You wish you could still have me, walking together among the trees.