I sit on the edge of the water, wondering. Were we destined to never settle down, never stay in one place? What were we running from again? They said we would stay, but that was a lie. Not until the others left did everything fall apart. Before this, such an adventure would seem like a holiday, maybe even to me.

Out closer to the water a branch breaks off from a trunk of driftwood. While the lowly stick drifts out into the sea, the bigger chunk of lumber stays in place. Maybe the tide will bring back that branch to the shore, like nostalgia brings me back to my true home. Though, it wouldn’t be the same. No longer a part of that tree again, we would never connect. Looking over at one another only from a distance.

The bough and trunk may be separated, but each will show the same signs of age. From their rings to petrification. Are we both bound to drift around, breaking off piece by piece? I don’t want to keep moving. I want to lie still, if only for a few moments, and enjoy the sound of the cicadas instead of the crashing waves before me.

No matter the effort, one branch didn’t have the strength to fight against a current. Its path was set in stone as soon as it was carried off. No, even before that. The tree died off and fell down, too. Not so far away from the forest, though. Clinging to normalcy and the freezing wet sand. 

My aunt tried fighting her disease like the roots of our tree tried fighting the parasites that plagued us, and even though we never talk about it, I know that’s what pushed us over the edge. Tumbling down the cliff, then we chose our own path, hoping to leave behind the horrors we left there. I don’t belong in the water, but that was never in our power, was it?