Emulating Sylvia Plath

Bonsai

They plucked you like a stray hair

From atop the high cliffs

Where you belong.

Painstakingly trimming your roots to fit their pots,

Meticulously pruning your crown like a monkey picking bugs

From his tribe mate, their actions deliberate.

Never satisfied, they won’t stop

Watching you for any sign of

Growth and nipping you before you get any ideas.

Tolerate this, but more promises

To come in the form of wire

Spiraled tightly around your limbs like

Ivy around an arbor

Bending you, shaping you to their

Will, weighing you down, aging you, breaking you until

You die to be free.

I am you, you are me,

Bonsai tree.