The all along tree came just from her fruit
no seed from parent, no replanted root.
She grows and she climbs, reaching for the skies
but finds only more flesh, then she shrivels and dies.
You call for her back but she's run out of light,
roots run out of water, despite searching all night.
Before she's all gone though, she bears you a gift
a fruit just so sweet that you weep when it's sniffed
something so crisp and refreshing and cool
you so long for a taste that you choke on your drool.
But it seems you've forgotten, it's already inside
it sits whole in your stomach, your raptured denied.
It lays deep within until, it's skin sloughing off,
you can taste at its fumes, bringing sickening cough.
So sweet that you're sick, rotting organs fester
but something is growing, and she's heard you request her.
Roots wriggle down into intestines and meat,
through stomach lining finding sources of heat.
Branches grow up, with leaves into lung
crowding your throat to take hold of your tongue.
She drinks up your water and warmth and your bile,
roots knotting in your guts and twigs in your smile,
until all that is left to grow whole and complete
is a glimpse of the sun you're never to eat.
And so she will shrivel, and you're left full of rot
but the all along tree left a gift, like it or not.