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Bonus Poem: To the Tree I Aborted

We had wanted you,
To hide the unsightly green box
To shade us during the
Mid-afternoon sun.
And you grew, and grew
Like the weeds, you were
Getting so big and beautiful,

And then he told me
We didn’t want you anymore.

So I threw on my all-weather executioner jacket,
Picked up the shears, blunt as they were,
From the garage, and under the pale
Gray of the early evening sky
I began to chop at your shoots
Some small and easy, others large
And hard. It was so hard

To take my coat hanger-shears
And tear at your life as if it was
My choice to stop you from living,
My choice to tell you this was where
Your pulse was beating and where you would
Not turn into a full grown birch.
How are we capable of these decisions?
How do we just pick up the shears,
Amid the rain-soaked grass,
Place you in a black plastic bag, and
Listen to the windchimes as they sound
Your funeral song.

I didn’t want to tear at your life.
We just wanted a view without you in it.
And that seemed enough of a reason
At the time. But as I went to wipe
The green-blood-stained shears
With rags from the laundry,
And hang them back in the garage,
I hoped, as I washed the green-blood off
In the sink, that I would never have to use
Those shears ever again.

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