After climbing a tree
I am almost five again
As if I never left Mom’s side
Before I cried all the way to school
Innocent as this spring’s first rose
My house looks warm from the branch
A living proof of history
Curtains swaying happily
Before being taken down
I hang on to the widest branch, clinging
Not facing the moving truck
Refusing the sight of the cardboard boxes
Suffocating my childhood memories
And the bandages of labels scribbled on their foreheads
My mom paces back and forth on the empty floors
Dad caresses the walls before he hides a sad face
The tree and I say our goodbyes
I pack up my heart in a leaf, and we leave