Authenticity
My bare skin on the soil… Deep inside I can feel the squirm
The half-rotted roots of the trees dancing below
Neither warm nor kind…
Neither yours nor mine
Damp leaves and wrangled branches slither over me
Telling my body the naked truth…
Of complexity… and sad simplicity
The tree is forever himself, I am stuck changing
My feet leaving small and temporary prints in the mud
The hot caressing sun diluting my pain… Oh to be the tree
Ava Ameter is a third-year English major and Education minor at the University of California Santa Barbara. She has a passion for reading and writing, especially poetry, and one day hopes to pass on this passion by becoming a high school English teacher!