we saw this tree on monday and felt happy and free and comfortable all day. now the syrup of worry is creeping back in. on tuesday an old woman was shouting "please help me" out of her window, i went to her and she was crying and saying that she felt very lost so i offered to come and sit with her until her son, who was supposed to be visiting arrived, he never arrived. i went up to her living room, filled to the brim with artificial flowers, religious ephemera and newspaper clippings and stroked her back while she cried and shook with worry and loneliness and it was one of the saddest things i have ever seen. and now this news of you, with your ways as twisted as this tree, trying to crush and snap this happiness and freedom and comfort that we have built around us, trying to brush the aura we have worked so hard to repair with your pungent, punishing tar.
