Roots

Roots

Sometimes you don’t know how deeply the roots of something have grown

until you try to pull it up

you find tendrils coiled around your bones

stubbornly holding on

tightening their grip with every wrench

from there they have burrowed into the softness of your heart

reaching for the very centre of you

Mycorrhizae branching off in a thousand directions and then a thousand more

ever more complex patterns

and all the while you pull at them

each tug rips at a different part of you

and the pain

the pain

the pain

until you decide that the only thing you can do

is allow it to remain

that sprawling system of roots and all that has grown from it

and you learn to exist with it rooted right there inside of you

knowing it is part of you now

for ever