I'm a lonely tree with bare branches reaching outward, twisting onto themselves, looking every direction for something to connect to.

The sky rains the saddest, richest, most beautiful combination of colors on me.
I am a tree. Alone with the sky and the earth,
reaching to catch the rain; this outpouring of blended color.

I cannot catch it. It rolls over me.
I can absorb some of it, use it to grow
and live, and change, and stretch, and
reach outward more, to something unknown,
or nothing at all.

I am a faithful tree.
I fear though that I will be cut short,
that I will be used.
That my effort and worth will be overlooked
or that they are only false manifestations of my need to feel that I am an important part of a greater whole.
I fear that my intrinsic beauty is not enough; that my life-supporting processes will be forgotten;
that I will never be loved, the way I unconditionally love.