René Vasquez

I think that the ground should always remain at some distance below us. Close enough to reach in an emergency but far enough to allow us to forget the feel of it beneath our feet. We can retain a memory of our terrestrial past while navigating the branches that by now would have become our home. 

What does this mean? Are we really going to be living in trees? In a way yes, perhaps. I think that the prospect is appealing. Certainly, it is a substantial part of most of our childhoods, well most of us of a certain age and with a certain proximity to trees. There is a freedom, a feeling of breaking the rules of our species, of leaving our limitations behind. And this feeling increases the higher we climb. And as this sense of freedom increases, so too, does the precariousness and tangle of the branches surrounding us. Perhaps soon they will no longer hold our weight and we will tumble back to earth, bruised and wondering if maybe we are meant to stay grounded after all and leave the climbing to cats and squirrels and colonies of ants. 

But as the play of our youth gives way to adulthood, the actuality of trees gives way to the metaphor or even the mythology of trees. 

And this is where I am now.

My feet are firmly planted and rooted to the earth. I move with the earth, I sleep and wake and breathe with the earth. Can I be for you everything—or anything, from this planted place? I look to the stars for answers as they move above me in their slow, lazy arc. But they are as foreign to me as I am to them and my immediate problem is these roots and tendrils that knot and grow around my ankles. I see you in the distance. You have not yet seemed to notice that you are still living in trees. It is a bit unbecoming for a woman your age if I am allowed to be frank, though I would never say that to your face or to someone who might tell you that is what I think. In fact, each day you seem to have climbed a bit higher and I worry that when you do fall you will do so with such a terrific thud that you may never again regain consciousness. What would I do? From this distance, I certainly couldn’t catch you, or even break your fall. I call to you but by the time my voice reaches you, it sounds only like the slight rustling of leaves or the distant flapping of a sparrow’s wings. 

You are far too high and I’m sure the branches can’t possibly hold your weight, though you are but a wisp at this point, probably no heavier than a squirrel. And I wonder if it is my perspective or if you are actually getting smaller. I have too little time to think of these things and I must go back to the business of tending to my obligations.

Once, at night, I watched as you picked fruit from the branches of your tree. And I could have sworn I saw you also pluck a star from the sky and place it in the basket along with your apples. How high have you climbed? I adjust the focus of my telescope. I can just barely make you out in the dark space between Saturn and its rings, your white dress trailing you like the tail of a comet. 

I read somewhere once that certain birds, finches I think they were, adapted very quickly to their environment. Some developed long beaks to…

Honestly, I’m getting a little annoyed. We made a pact, you and me. Don’t you remember? It was behind the bungalows; we were nine. Do you remember now? We said that when this was all done we were going to get married, and Daniella, I think that was her name, was going to watch and make it all official. I know, we were nine. But then when we were twelve you actually let me kiss you behind those same bungalows and you promised me forever—and now I wait for you here, moss growing on my north side while you are still climbing. And I can hardly see you now, even with this bigger telescope. 

I’ve almost given in. My calves seem almost wooden, I think it is because I have neglected sunscreen though I think it is actually bark I see. There’s still some green just below my knees and then above that, it is still all skin. I know I should be taking better care of these things. It is fortunate that everything is delivered these days, right to me, I don’t even have to move. Can you believe that? It’s so convenient. I ordered SPF 50 to mitigate this transformation. 

Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night. I reach for my telescope which is getting so big I can almost no longer pick it up. I struggle a bit, then put it down. I look up into the night sky with my own limited vision, my sleepy lid-heavy eyes adjusting to the starlight. I imagine you up there. I wonder if you are sleeping or perhaps looking down from your high perch amid the celestial flora, looking for me or at least searching for a memory of the life you left behind, this life I am sure you are quickly forgetting.  

But maybe I am dreaming. I think this is a good possibility. This could still be the delirium I am experiencing after our first kiss. Yes, that is it, that would explain everything. I will wake up. I am still fourteen. I will see you tomorrow on the playground and tell you about this fantastic dream (though, it is steeped in a melancholy that I doubt either one of us will fully understand). I shut my eyes tight, I try to ignore the birds nesting at my clavicle. I wait for sleep to overcome me, I wait for this dream to go away. 

I wake as the sun eases its way over the high fence that keeps whatever is beyond it safely in the distance. I see the red glow of my eyelids, flecks of white swim and dart and I try to follow them around to the inside of my head. Eventually, I open my eyes and I acclimate to the new day. I think it may be only a matter of weeks until I am able to see over and beyond the fence, though I don’t know if I’m particularly eager to do so. Is it always night time in space? I wonder if you brought a coat—or a flashlight. I twist my neck and strain my eyes to have a look at the progress of the nest being built on my shoulder, sunlight reflects off a small scrap of wire. For a moment I am caught in an idyllic serenity. For a moment I forget my work. 

The stacks are nearly high enough. The rows are as straight as I can muster without the aid of a protractor. I am satisfied. I imagine the grid from the sky. There is an infinite amount of space to fill and always enough work to fill it. I will never run out of either. There is a certain beauty in this symbiosis of space and things to fill it with. I think of you looking down and being so proud and enamored of my straight and even rows. I imagine them enticing you to return, I imagine you having not forgotten. 

The sun is already setting. My goodness, these days go by so fast. As soon as the sun disappears behind the hills and the fiery stripes at the horizon begin to blend into the black/blue at the edge of night, I will reach for my telescope and with all my might, bring it to my eye and look for you among the spiral galaxies and supernovas. Satellites move about you like gnats, tangling in your hair and causing frequent interruptions in communications and navigation, sending people momentarily down one-way streets and cul-de-sacs. The moon is too bright tonight, I think, and I can’t be sure if that glint is coming from the sparkle in your eyes or some other bright star nurturing life in the faraway and timeless distance. 

I waited a very long time. I sat with my knees drawn up to my chest as you yelled down “just a little bit higher”. I waited until the air got chilly and the sky turned that color that foretold the end of summer. I waited until our mothers stood on the back porches calling to us that it was time to come in for the evening. I waited until it was only my mother’s voice I heard and some other, smaller voice that told me you weren’t ever coming down and that even your mother knew that as she walked back into the house, puzzled at why she was ever on the back porch to begin with. 

And so I moved about my days and wondered why no one ever asked about you or even noticed that you were missing. In geography, there was a new girl sitting next to me and I think they replaced the desk too because I couldn’t find the spot where I carved our initials within a little heart with my one good pen which never wrote clearly again; after which, I only used the ones I borrowed from you. When fall came I kicked a path through the leaves to the base of that tree, thinking I might get a look at you with all the branches being bare. But all I saw was the crisscross of twigs disappearing into the crisp Autumn sky. On the trunk of the tree, before I turned to leave, I carved another little heart and inside, instead of our initials, I carved in very tiny letters “I miss you”.

Months and years passed. I thought that once I read a story about a girl who climbed up into a tree and never came down again. I wanted to read more stories by that author whose name I couldn’t think of. The story was so vivid that at times I felt that the experience had happened to me. It took a long time until I finally remembered. 

Sometimes my stacks aren’t aligned at all.

Sometimes my mind wanders when I should be thinking about straight lines and even stacks.

Sometimes my mind wanders far up into the sky.

Sometimes I am just thinking about you.

Somewhere, once, I learned that your name means “grace”: simple elegance or refinement of movement. And that is such a true definition of you, though you also graced me with those moments that were not contained by that definition at all, and I think it is those things that keep me looking to the sky for you. If you slipped I would catch you, if the branch was too high I would boost you, and you always looked at me as if this was our secret, that for me, you could allow yourself to need someone...but this is why my stacks are askew! Any more of these reveries and I will have to start all over…

But, I am still waiting for you,

I am still…

Yesterday, a new telescope was delivered. It was so easy, I only had to press a button. I no longer have to lift anything, this one is far too heavy and anyway, my left arm has recently become rather difficult to move unless the wind is at just the right velocity. It came with its own automated cradle. I have a series of levers on a box I attach to my belt with the included clip. It is all so terribly convenient. I was promised an unimaginable view of the cosmos and all the reviews were five stars, though I could not find one that specifically mentioned the efficacy of locating those previously lost in trees. I will take the mention of the clarity of the red square  nebula through this particular instrument as a good sign that I have made the right purchase. 

The moon has dipped back into the sea and the night is dark. The universe is a very strange thing, and the moon holds its breath so that I may see you more clearly. Here and there the stars twinkle and I can just make out your footprints on the surface of Titan. 

The first summer after you didn’t return, I went to that tree every day and climbed a little higher each time. But when I finally got to the very highest branches that could still hold my weight, all I could see above me were the wispy, still-green twigs that led nowhere but to the emptiness of the sky. And I would stay there cradled in those branches wishing for you as the boughs swayed and creaked under my weight. 

It seems so long ago,

it seems like yesterday.

I have lost track of time, though I am sure it is still passing. I watch the sun rise and fall, watch the shadows grow and recede, crawling over my careful stacks, staining them with the passage of time. I have begun to carve notches at my hip to record each time your orbit passes through the optics of my telescope. For a long time I carved notches in the trunk of that tree that took you somewhere up into its branches. I marked the days, the weeks, the years; marked them until I forgot what I was keeping track of, until one day I stood there, pocket knife in hand, staring blankly at those strange hieroglyphs. 

Memories fade and disappear, like anything that moves away from us over time or distance. It is not our fault, it is simply the geography of the mind.

I woke with a post-it glued to my chest. It is a reprimand, a demerit, a notation of the error of my ways. My stacks are getting too high, they exceed the maximum height specified in my handbook and I must spend the day recalibrating my grid. I have a job to do and if any of us fall out of line or allow other things to divide our attention, everything falls apart. 

My work provides an essential function. Mostly it goes unnoticed and is taken for granted. It is this way as long as I do my job diligently and without flaw. It is my duty to go unnoticed, for my work to remain invisible to all but the occasional poet or misfit. These grids are a framework for the world on a larger level. I take information and arrange it thus. It is all a matter of balance and order and this balance allows the freedom for other things to stray and wander. My grid is a framework, a scaffold for others to hang their dreams upon…

I hadn’t meant to climb so high and as I listened to my mother’s voice trail off and disappear behind the kitchen door, I knew that she would never call me home from that back porch again. I don’t know why I knew this but somewhere between the ground and the highest branches, I crossed over into a different world. And I saw you far below, seeming to drift in and out between solid and vapor. But I knew also that you were firmly of the earth and I was of the sky. I wanted to call down to you, tell you to wait for me, but my voice already began to dissipate among the sounds of rustling leaves the moment the words passed my lips. And by the time they made it down to you, it was only my silent breath that reached you. 

I wonder if you still think of me after all these years. We pledged forever behind the bungalows but I would understand if you have forgotten. 

The view is so amazing from here in the high branches, I see so many things I couldn’t have imagined, though it seems that I will never reach the top. The branches grow faster than I can climb and it has been a very long time since I could see the spot where I last saw you. It would be too much to expect that you would still be waiting, but every so often I drop an apple down in that direction hoping it might land on your head just like that guy, who very long ago, discovered gravity. 

I am climbing back in time; I get smaller and smaller, I get bigger and bigger. How can I explain this? It is just a feeling but I sense that the universe is breathing, expanding and contracting along with everything in it, including me, including you. I feel you coming closer and I feel you speeding away. Do you ever feel me too?...

Satellites tangle in my hair, stars pass like a blizzard, frosting my eyelashes, melting on my tongue. The higher I climb, the more fantastic it all becomes. What if you had taken my hand and ignored our mothers’ calls...? 

Another night passes. It is morning, I open my eyes; the light from the sun startles my pupils. The light is strong and briefly blinding. I close my eyes and watch a tiny white, blue ringed blob float lazily against the magenta backdrop of my closed lids. For a moment I am content to follow this luminous apparition. It bounces from one side to the other, spins and glows and transforms into so many amorphous shapes. 

My name is called out on the loudspeaker, it is a gentle but public reminder that this is a reverie I should be having on my own time. My own time is limited though and generally reserved for looking deep into the night sky, looking for you among the other luminous things that dwell far up in the heavens. I have become familiar with the stars, intimate with the planets, I track asteroids and chart the course of comets. My world is more than what it seems.

I occupy my familiar spot, I do my familiar work. My roots are deep and expansive. I am sure they reach beyond the fence. But when I look through my telescope I feel no longer rooted to the earth. When I look through my telescope my mind is boundless. 

Ants make a dotted line along the seam of my trousers. They hurry along with certainty and conviction. The line leads up along my leg and into my pocket. It is a mystery where they go from there. My life is full of mysteries, and you are the greatest of those. I bring the eyepiece of my telescope close to me, adjust the power, and slowly rotate the regulator disc to bring you into focus. I dial it back and for a moment I watch you through the hazy gauze of my muffled lense. It is almost like watching that white shape float against my closed lid, your long dress swirling in a spiral of stars and dust against the backdrop of a magenta universe. 

My eyes fill with a salty sea. Waves lash against the polished lense; it overflows into the world around me.

I look about me as the water rises. I watch my straight rows begin to crumble in the swells. Houses, trees, and children bob among the waves. The world is always teetering on the edge of transformation and as the waves push against me I feel my roots faintly disengage from the surrounding earth. 

The deluge clears and all is as it was. I dry the last remnant swell from my eyes and look again into the distant sky. I travel through atmospheres, I travel through space. I am weightless, I am free, and it seems I can almost touch you, even though my arms are fixed in space and sprouting branches and acorns grow from the tips of every finger. (A sapling sprouts through an eyelet of my shoe). You and I are a mirror of each other, the opposites comprising the whole. You are up and I am down. I am dark and you are light. I am the still lake and you are the raging sea. Well, and more specifically: I am the earth and you are the sky. This last example clearly does away with metaphor. This is, in actuality, a completely accurate description of our particular situations. All things drift or crawl back to their source. All things wish to die at home. I thought that home would be where you are. I thought with naive innocence, when I saw you that very first time, that you were sent here to take me with you. And I remember that night, saying goodbye to all the things I cherished because I had found something I had cherished more. And still since then, I have surrounded myself with so little, and it is only those things that might help me find you that I keep close to me.  

My forearms sprout tiny buds, it must nearly be springtime. (Venus passes through the Pleiades  and the comet Atlas streaks across the brightening sky). But I will still see you as the single brightest object. That is my bias but in all other things I see only what is to be seen, do only what is to be done. My roots run deep, my roots spread far. Where I seem I am not, I am. 

I find another note pinned to my shirt. I must look busy, there is no time to rest, if you must do such things, then do them off the clock, it reads. I am somewhat embarrassed and a bit off put. I arrange my final stack of the day, double check to ensure that all the lines are straight and square. I summon my telescope with a nudge of the controller. The lense is now nearly the size of a small house. It is, all on its own, a beautiful thing, but what it can do leaves me nearly in tears. The sun sets. Small fires ignite in the sky. My eyes acclimate to the darkness and I can see, even without my telescope, the shapes of the constellations I have memorized from my encyclopedia Britannica. The “S” through “T” is my favorite volume; it contains two of my favorite things, trains and stars. It also contains an article about trees in which was never mentioned the possibility of the tree you inhabit. 

Even if I were to know how you did it, even if I were to know the science of it all, I would not understand for a moment why you left without saying goodbye. You left me waiting beneath that tree for what must have been three passing seasons and by the time I finally realized you weren’t coming back, my body had already begun rooting to the earth. The tendrils multiplied at the bottom of my feet and tried to burrow themselves into the topsoil each time I stood still for more than a few moments. For a long time I was really only still while I slept and the tendrils could only dangle there at the dark edge of my bed.

But eventually my responsibilities slowed me down until I stopped moving all together and those tendrils finally found fertile soil to anchor in. I didn’t notice at first. I didn’t notice that my toes had stretched and spread out over the ground beneath me. I did not realize that it was not just my commitment to my work that kept me stuck firmly to this spot. Had it occurred to me that there was something of interest just a few feet away, to my right or to my left, I would have been unable to move from my spot to investigate, I would have known at that moment that a transformation had taken place. 

Perhaps I should have stayed sitting under that tree. Could that have been the reason for my current state? Was I meant to grow beside this tree of yours; eventually reaching you, eventually holding you in my own branches and continuing up, together, forever? But my impatience and perturbation dismantled the plan. So instead I am here, tending to my stacks. I am not well watered so I think my growth has been slowed or delayed. I have barely reached the height of the fence, the stars are still so far away. If it wasn’t for my telescope, my world would be only as big as what I could see and maybe just a hair beyond that due to anything my imagination might want to add. And I would not know where you are. It was by chance that I found you. I had meant to focus on Venus, enamored by its brightness even in relationship to the fat, full moon, which, given its dominion over the night sky, seemed to rival the brightness of the sun on that particular evening. But it so happened, and to my genuine surprise, that night the moon would be eclipsed by the earth, and as the last sliver crescent disappeared, the space between the moon and Venus, which just moments before had been an empty black sea, began filling with points and swirls of light, and I could see, just faintly, a wisp of your hair, flowing through that sparkling space. And on the first subsequent new moon, I aimed my telescope again, just slightly down and to the left of Venus, and saw you climbing, still higher into the tangled branches of that tree. 

It is strange. Though it has been a very long time since I visited that spot where I sat and waited for you, I remember that in all the time I spent looking up into those branches, nothing about that tree appeared different from the others. The branches ended, eventually giving the tree the familiar form of all the others. The fruit was similar to that of the other trees and if anything this tree was perhaps even a little shorter than the others, its branches choosing to take a more horizontal approach to tree building which provided the very best geometry for climbing. 

I have found myself in the ocean, I am bobbing up and down. I do not know how I got here. 

I should not be here, my place is in the dirt. I feel uncomfortable with this freedom at my feet. 

This is the third time this week I have had this dream. I wonder if the experience is anything like what you feel up there in space. It is a disconcerting lack of grounding, to be swept here and there with nothing to hold on to, and with no certainty where you might end up, I am not feeling good about this at all. Is this why you left? Are we so different from one another, is our sense of balance so terribly off? I imagine that we gravitate to where we feel most at home. 

This is true; I looked down while you looked up. I thought this was a peculiarity of our anatomy, a posture dictated by mechanics rather than philosophy. But our vision guides us, it is something we cannot escape, and I was guided to the dirt and you to the stars; I would burrow and you would soar and I wonder if we could ever reconcile our nature with our desire…

But I let my imagination escape, but it too is bound by my nature; it is a dog on a chain, free until it is abruptly yanked back, abruptly contained. So I will watch you through the magic of mirrors. I will watch you climb through the infinity of branches, through the infinity of stars.  

I bring the eyepiece closer. My telescope is so large now that I have had to reposition my stacks to create a keyhole shape to contain the winches and cogs and various mechanisms that bring my telescope into its precise position. My co-worker complains that he no longer has a view of the gently rolling hills on the other side of the fence, but there are other things to look at and I suggest he look up into the sky now and then. 

I have two homes. I occupy two worlds. And this tree I climb connects me to both. It is still rooted in the Earth even as it takes me higher and deeper into the boundless universe. I think I feel you watching me. I hope that I am right; that you have kept an eye on me and that perhaps you are still there, somewhere, to catch me if I fall. 

I need something...or someone to hold me to the Earth, even if I could never truly call it home, even if my eyes and arms are always taking me somewhere else, I want to be tethered to something. We are never completely free if we have no attachment to anything, freedom is a prison if it is all we know. 

I wonder sometimes if I have made the right decision. Perhaps I am really just afraid of heights, and I have chosen this life only out of fear. But I am good at what I do and who would do it if I did not? We all have our purpose and to embrace it without complaint is the best thing we can possibly do. And we should always do our best, there is never a question about that and we are both doing our best, you and me. Isn’t this true? Do you think I am, or do you judge me from your place in the cosmos, so far away?

I have some questions actually; I suppose I can save them for later, but it troubles me to think about these things. I hesitate a bit because my pride makes me question the wisdom of exposing my ignorance to you, but when I saw you last—disappearing into the high branches, I recall you were only wearing a dress, not even a sweater if I remember correctly. Do you get cold? How is it that you breathe in space, I wonder? 

But what I’d really like to know is, do you ever get lonely way up there?  

I don’t often think about my own needs; there is too much I am responsible for to dwell on that, but I do sometimes wonder if you miss me. I have learned over the years to forgive myself for this selfish thought and I watch you through my telescope for any sign of regret in the language of your movements. I once thought I saw you pause and move your foot as if to begin climbing down instead of up but it must have just been a cramp, which makes sense after climbing so far. 

You are beginning to appear a bit hazy and it may be time to upgrade my optics. Occasionally, I wonder if it may be time to stop watching, to stop waiting. I am a man. I am no longer a boy with the time and luxury for longing or the possibility of love. We were children and my thoughts of the future were the thoughts of children. I am needed; people rely on my productivity and my steady dedication to my work. What would they do if these stacks weren’t in order? What would they do if I were like you?

Once, I almost came down. There was a moment when my foot, almost on its own, hesitated and seemed to want to go down instead of up. I think there was a part of me that hoped it would continue and my body would follow. I think sometimes I miss the earth; I miss the solid ground and the sunlight; I miss knowing you are there. 

I am not the type who wishes to be seen. I value efficiency and dedication over attention or even curiosity. It is why I am so good at what I do and I have no angst or confusion over the value of my work or even myself as a person. I am happy when I quantify, fulfilled when I subdue any waves of discontent. I am well suited for my lot in life and my roots are healthy and deep and hold me firmly to my place.

But you…

You are not like me at all and it really shouldn’t be that you hold my interest so completely. You take my mind off my work; I lose focus and make mistakes. I find myself detached from the present, always waiting for evening when I can train my telescope on your glowing image climbing among the stars. 

I am ignorant of science, well, at least all things that I cannot see or experience first hand, but I have heard things, and read them now and then when I come across them in my news feed. They are things I cannot begin to understand, things pertaining to space, and time, and very small things. I wonder too, as my mind entertains, or grapples with these unknowable things, if you are, maybe still, as you were when you first started your ascent. Have you grown up as I have or have you escaped time as assuredly as you have escaped the earth? I cannot imagine a grown woman navigating those branches as nimbly as you do, and furthermore, I now begin to question if I am seeing you at all when I look through my telescope; am I simply imagining you? I know so little about what is up there and I may easily be mistaking you for some other mysterious object floating through the universe; but I still look and cannot imagine stopping. But am I being foolish? Am I wasting time pondering your whereabouts? I must be the furthest thing from your mind, not just in actual distance but also in your memory and your heart. I am simple; I know that you are not. What could I give you but straight lines and knowable things? 

I am reading The Little Prince; it is a book that reminds me of you.

How old have I become by now? I have lost count of the years that have passed. I am not a person who questions my purpose, some things are simply not for us and it is best to just let them go. But what if there are things I didn’t recognize? There is lingering doubt and I feel it most when I put my eye against the scope. There are secrets I have with no one to tell them to. There are dreams I have that no one will know. Is it good to carry these things inside? Is it good to be alone? I busy myself with obligation, I busy myself with lies. I lie to myself, I lie to the world. I am a man with a hole at the center.

I am fond of trees as metaphor; it is their nature to contain and organize, and propagate and they can be almost nothing else, even what we think them to be. I am possibly becoming a tree as well, but most likely not. What I seem to be becoming is a metaphor for what I am and because I am still most of the time, I am susceptible even to the concrete manifestation of this device. I am not like a tree, I am a tree. It makes me laugh a bit and I am humbled by the power of ideas, of language, of loneliness. It is a wonder how we make sense of the world, the things we imagine and tell ourselves. It is all so very beautiful, it is all so very tragic. Words and their meanings overlap. Memories and the present do the same. 

I have gotten ahead of my work and there is nothing for me to do. I have spent a lifetime perhaps a single step ahead of everything and those steps have added up. I have a lifetime of credits and they are being cashed in without my consent. And what I have is time, it is too much and I grow restless at the thought of my leisure. 

I look into the sky without my telescope. I look for you with my naked eye. I won’t see you so I look for the path you may have taken. I look at the layers of sky, the layers of space.  

I am watching the world fall apart.

I am watching on my television as the world splits open, suffocates and destroys itself. There is so much happening here and I am glad and relieved that you are safe among the stars and the beautiful emptiness between them. 

It is June first, 2020, the United States of America, the planet Earth.

Where does my story go from here? What world would I expect you to return to?

I look for you now but I cannot find you. Perhaps you have climbed too far beyond my telescope’s abilities or you are exploring the dark side of some interstellar object. Maybe it is for the best, maybe this place should be left behind by those like you whose lightness cannot be bound by our folly. I fear that we are tumbling to our end, I fear that we will not be here when you look back. 

Is it that all our dreams have escaped us? We are mired in the muck, our roots entangled in the dank soil of our ideologies. My metaphors are all entangled as well. What does your escape represent?

I have been blind. I am looking at all the wrong things. I look for you, and for what? You made the decision to leave and I made the decision to stay. That is it, end of story.

The stars burn, the sun burns, and now the earth burns too. You will climb deeper and farther into the unknown universe until there is nowhere left to climb, until there is nothing left but the frigid nothing beyond the edge. And you will die there instead of here. The more I watched you, the more I waited for you and wished for you, the deeper my roots burrowed, the tighter they held me to the earth, held me to my longing and regret. But I see the flames burning on the horizon, hear the voices rising from the mouths and hearts of those massed at the crest. Those silent placid hills are now writhing beneath the footfalls of a charging army. And the heat and the sounds are coming closer; the heat and the sounds stir the air and send waves of portent across my brow. The branches which were once my arms quiver, the roots that were once my legs hold tighter to the earth. 

And this will all blow past me if I let it. And when it is over I will need only to straighten my stacks and continue as if nothing had ever happened. 

I turn back to look at the Earth, at home. I wonder what I have missed and my heart feels the weight of homesickness even here in the weightlessness of space. I climb because I must, because my mind, and my body, and my soul long for what I do not yet know. But still, there is much I loved in that place that is now so far away. I dangle one leg into the emptiness. The earth looks like a speck of dust upon a vast black curtain.

What matters is that we tell people what we think—of them, of the world, of what we dream, and hope for, and desire. But what matters most is who, and what, we love, what we can’t bear to live without. I work every day, I sink down roots. She dreams and climbs and disavows everything that might threaten to tie her down. But I think that she loved me and I know that I loved her, but we each live our life bound by our conceptions of ourselves, and this is why I never told her, and this is why she never asked. And I will sink my roots deeper and she will climb higher, both of us moving farther from what might have been.