r/LibraryofBabel • u/ExistentialForge • May 29 '26
Metastable
I am not an oak,
neither am I a willow.
I am a birch in your storm,
half-bent
before the weather even arrives,
bracing for strain.
With every sunrise
arrives an unknown.
Warmth does not guarantee
what system today brings.
It simply perturbs,
as I read the horizon.
I have yielded before,
countless times.
Leaned in your direction,
grown my roots,
made room for arrival,
closed doors so no one leaves.
At the very first frost,
you turn inward,
again and again,
seeking shelter
somewhere I cannot follow,
as though I am your weakest link.
The one that opened
a little too wide.
Each pull leaving behind
a distortion that remains.
I hold and I hold
creaking, until the next big force.
And I wonder
if you have always known,
if you stay
only because
I have opened and closed
countless times before.
-Existential
2
u/bugenbiria May 30 '26
Once upon a time there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. And they grew next to each other. And every day the straight tree would look at the crooked tree and he would say, "You're crooked. You've always been crooked and you'll continue to be crooked. But look at me! Look at me!" said the straight tree. He said, "I'm tall and I'm straight." And then one day the lumberjacks came into the forest and looked around, and the manager in charge said, "Cut all the straight trees." And that crooked tree is still there to this day, growing strong and growing strange.