Its roots were not given gentle earth. They pushed through broken glass and silence, through the cold press of voices too loud, too sharp, too absent. The soil was shallow where love should have been deep. It learned to grow by flinching.

Its trunk bears the stories—scarred not by time but by touch. By the hands that should have held it safe, and didn’t. Each wound not just a memory but a force, redirecting its climb. Still, it rose—not in strength, but out of sheer refusal to disappear.

Its branches curled like questions, reaching not toward the sun, but away from shadow. Twisted, hesitant, beautiful in their defiance. It never knew which way was right, only which way wasn’t.

And yet, by dusk, the growth had taken shape. Not chosen, exactly. Not understood. But final. Because even indecision becomes decision when lived long enough. Each bend, each break, left a mark—not just on the wood, but on what the tree became.

Time did not wait for clarity. It moved, and the tree moved with it. What was done, was done.

So it stands—whole only because it kept growing. A monument to surviving the storm by becoming it. To living without answers, and still choosing life.