The Phantom Limb of Love

Outside my bedroom window, the old oak tree was chopped down so sunlight could hit the solar panels. A bold step toward going green, though not without its irony. Every morning, I wake up to see the lone 20-foot remnant of that once-majestic tree, planted long before I was born. I remembered seventh-grade biology and started counting its rings, marvelling at the way its xylem and phloem worked together. I bragged about my knowledge to myself and went on with my day. I used to enjoy watching the tree each day. The sight of its rough, jagged cut made by a chainsaw, with wood chips scattered around and a musky scent filling the air. Over time, that scent faded, and the cheerful squirrels disappeared too. The tree is slowly healing its wounds. A white liquid oozes from its edges, smoothing over the rough cuts, as if nature is mending itself. Perhaps this change is a quiet lesson for me, a reminder to adapt and regrow. Where my science ends, poetry begins.

The liquid oozing from the edges did not stop for a while. The tree, still unaware of its phantom limb, kept sending nutrients upward. With no leaves left, it used all its stored energy from the bark and roots, slowly pushing food and water toward its severed canopy. Each drop was a symbol of patience and persistence. Crafted from thousands of chemical reactions, drawn from millions of nutrients in the soil, all to create the perfect sustenance for leaves that no longer existed. Was it all useless now? The droplet, rising through the bark, reached only the open wound, where it met the harsh sun. With nowhere left to go, it bubbled up and hardened into resin. Where does all this love escape to when the one meant to receive it is lost?

Is love directional? When it has nowhere to go, is it still love, or does it twist into something darker, like obsession for what’s lost? Why do these misdirected feelings always dissolve into grief? Can they be moulded into gentle memories of what once was? Here I stand, overwhelmed by a factory in my heart, churning out emotions without understanding that the need for them is negligible now. Is it destined to be trapped in an endless cycle of despair, crystallizing into hardened bubbles of resin beneath the harsh unforgiving sun? I wonder, is loving too much the price of an unfulfilled heart?

What happens when the rains come? When the open wound is soothed by drops of elixir, and new leaves push through the bark. The tree begins again. Every bud is a second chance, every raindrop a spark of hope for the love once trapped inside. But as the leaves unfurl, they are met with an overflow. The love that had nowhere to go now flooding the new growth all at once. Branches stretch wildly in every direction, leaves sprout in desperate attempts to find balance. The once-elegant tree, which once reached for the sky with purpose, now grows scattered, unruly. Soon, it is time to cut it down again.

And once again, the burden of loving too much becomes mine to bear.