Silly girl, dreams are for the birds

silly girl, you should have known to keep your feet planted and your head out of the clouds. eye on that pie in the sky, never noticed that the roots were slowly twining, slowly climbing, wrapping 'round flesh and bone, snapping sinew, twisting tendons, disfiguring and dislocating. you never asked to be planted, never asked for this tiny little patch of grass, never knew that while you stopped, standing here, transfixed by all the endless stretch of plains before you, you'd never move one inch from where the seed was watered, fed, and grown.

silly child, you should have known you are your parents' progeny. unmovable and unmoving, yet you keep reaching your stubby little fingers to the heavens, desperately trying to grab the nearest star, arms too short to even reach beyond the treetops. ocular refraction, you gaze through coke bottle lenses, maneuvering a path through the galaxy's defenses: planets and asteroids mooning you in childlike defiance, shooting stars on a collision course to never-never-land, but burning brighter for 15 minutes than you ever could accomplish in this oxygen-depriving state.

silly girl, you should know better than to dream, to let your mind wander to the what-ifs and maybe-could-bes. maybe, only not for you. look down. look at the roots, twisted and tangled, crooked to the planet's core. stop thinking of everything you'll never do and never be. it just isn't possible, you see? for the likes of you, with roots like yours, with feet so firmly planted and arms so short, your dreams will never be reality.

so just stop reaching.

so just stop moving.

so just stop. just stop. and realize that you are all you'll ever be. and any hope you might have had, the idea of transplantation to another field, another crop, another stock, another state... any idea of maybe being more than you ... well, that's what is funny too. had you tried a little sooner, had you realized you were so firmly entrenched, had you only ...

but what's the point in what ifs?

they are simply never-will-bes, silly child, and no amount of wishing on those swiftly burning stars will ever change the fact that your own roots betrayed and trapped you. and you are you. and you are here.

and here and you are all you can look forward to when there is no hope left inside you.