Falling Leaf

I am a falling leaf, detached from your stem. No longer a part of you, nothing else comes but grief. And death - your sap refusing to sustain me further, I fall. Past the branches, past the healthy leaves I can't help but envy.
I started as a bud, young, fresh, and vibrant. I was so excited to see my first sunrise, with you. I know now that it wasn't really the sunrise, but it was because you were holding me through the experience that it became all the more glorious.
We used to spend all day together and we couldn't ever go apart, even if we tried. We endured wind after wind, rain after rain, and even the occasional caterpillar staggering past. We would talk, we would watch the moon rise and set, we would try to see as far as the eye could see, and we were happy.
Now I only see the other leaves idling lazily past as I glide down to my oblivion. I was once one of them, alive, clinging happily to a twig, your twig, dancing to the wind, listening to the crickets, sharing with you the morning dew.
Then came autumn, and the cold. First the wind grew cold, then you (or was it the other way around?).
It was supposed to be just a normal breeze, one I usually survived with little effort, because you held on with me. I found out that my feeble hands were too weak to cling on to you by myself. I needed you to see how desperately I tried to keep my grip on your stem. I needed you to help me, but I suppose you felt the cold too, and couldn’t hang on.
Little by little we lost touch. We slipped... slowly. It gave me the illusion that the breeze was going to be past us soon and I could regain my handle and maybe, it would be stronger this time.
Wrong!
So wrong, for just as the first breeze was dwindling down another one came, a stronger one. I never saw it coming.
I screamed, but being a leaf I can only scream so loud. You looked at me sadly, perhaps remembering the sunrises we shared. Perhaps realizing that I never had the opportunity to grow out of budhood and become a full-grown leaf before death's swift sickle came.
As I fall, I feel an odd wetness on my cheek. I look and see that it's not dew but a tear, my first. I heard from an old leaf once that as you were falling, you would see your life pass quickly before you, scene by scene. I expected that much, I just never expected it to be this soon. I was just a bud on your stem, we were supposed to grow together!
At the same time as each scene comes across my eyes another wind blows, and I see the ground retreating quickly. I wonder where this wind is taking me now, but I fervently hope that it sets me down by your feet.
Maybe then as the cold season ends and spring comes, I’d seep back into the soil and you'd take me back into you. Perhaps to become another leaf. Perhaps the next time I’d have the chance to grow fully and grow old holding your stem.


Written by: Marianyl Ehn-Ehn Rosas Itumay