There was a girl who liked to hide. Each day she sat alone beneath the weeping willow. The branches and the boughs of the tree wrapped themselves around her to form this secret safe haven that was all her own.
Each day she cast, in her mind, a spell so strong the whole town would burn. Tears ran down her cheeks and soaked into the cotton of her blouse. Blood ran from her clenched fists into the dirt of the ground on which she sat. And the words of her spell dripped from her tongue into the protection of the tree itself, which ate them up and swallowed them whole and kept them secret from the world.
In her heart, unspoken, was another wish, one that would let her stay here forever, surrounded and safe and alone. But always, eventually, the weeping willow had to let her go, and she would return to the world that was immune to her spells of destruction, but which was trying its hardest, each day, to be the ruin of her.
___________
Notes:
1. Written on July 1st, 2019
2. The title is taken from By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, by Elizabeth Smart