{"sf1_id":1287489,"sf2_id":"Rm0ODKeD","title":"Forest","author":"Nenekiri","words":373,"posted_at":"2018-01-11T02:11:00.000Z","tags":["Forest","Poem","personal"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1287489-forest","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/Rm0ODKeD","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/78/a8/78a80992-52e8-4895-8039-4b81936f17e1","description":"#3 of Poetry\n\nHey this is another personal poem that I had done a while back. I promise the next thing I put on here will be more furry related!","content":"Forest\n\n  \n\nI love the forest, but the forest does not love me.\n\nI protect her, but she bites back at me at every turn.\n\nShe does not want me here. She knows my kind.\n\n  \n\nShe must protect what is left of her. I know this, so the nettles sting less.\n\nBut still I persist, I keep coming back. For her sake and mine.\n\nShe needs me after all. \u0026nbsp;\n\n  \n\nSome days she is glad to see me. She remembers when I swung on her branches in the early morning dew.\n\nAnd chased foxes through groves of sweet-smelling trees.\n\nBut this isn't why I come back.\n\n  \n\nI know there will be more bad days than good.\n\nTo chase that feeling again would as fruitless as trying to catch a wild hare.\n\nAlways close but yet out of reach.\n\n  \n\nShe is dying. Slowly, very slowly. She knows and I know.\n\nI've walled her off. Kept others from venturing as far as I. I try to tell her she is safe now.\n\nShe won't hear me.\n\n  \n\nHer roots don't go as far as they used to. The trees on the outer fringe are starting to wilt.\n\nBut when I visit I bring water. I feed what is left in the hopes of easing the pain.\n\nIt doesn't help.\n\n  \n\nI tell stories when I visit. I recall all of the time I've spent enjoying her beauty.\n\nAnd she listens, always. No matter how she felt about me she always listened.\n\nI wanted her to remember.\n\n  \n\nOne day I went with my water and found the forest was brambles and dead bark.\n\nSave for a single speck of bright green in the very middle. I tried desperately to get in.\n\nBut to no avail.\n\n  \n\nI was not there when she died. I was told after the brush had been swept away.\n\nAnd for a long time I was angry and hurt. I did not understand why she would leave without goodbye.\n\nBut then I realized...\n\n  \n\nI could not bear to see the last leaf fall from the last tree in her.\n\nI was spared the agony of seeing her defeated.\n\nSo that her trees could florish in my memory.\n\n  \n\nI loved the forest and the forest loved me.\n\n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1287119-disconection.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1350319-thinking-of-you-a-short-freeform-poem.json"}}