Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm | people are no different to trees (234)

By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

People are no different to trees, even in the wild they are pruned by nature, via the gale, the wind and the rain, the occasional hailstorm. Human Beings need nourishment in all form, for our body it varies from culture to culture, from family to family. Feeding the human spirit is no different, we dance, we sing, we read poetry, stories. 

Through all these sessions of nourishment is the shared intangible connection of the human heart. We forget how poisonous our heart has become if we leave it unchecked. We become the poison. 

I am the poison first before I point my finger at anyone else. My father named me after a tropical forest tree. As I age I have embraced my name sake, as the rings on my trunk are added, I’m thicker, stronger. But if I ignore the rot in my heart, to the very root of the tree, I am destined to perish in slow agony, I am unaware of the insidious parasite of my creation. 

There are those amongst us who feed on such parasites, they dwell and relish in it until they could never live without it. And before they could stop such hunger for darkness, they have become such, parasitic in nature, a parasite. 

I will not tolerate it in myself, and I will not tolerate it in the heart of those I love. And I will discard those beyond this circle. 

January 3rd, 2022