Photo by TOMOKO UJI on Unsplash

by JL

when my soul was presented to the gods i asked to be one of the iconic pink flowers that had made up most of my childhood. when they asked me why? it's a pitiful life. you bloom for two weeks, you slumber for months, i asked them what they could possibly know about mortal wants. it was a good question. they looked at me like i was mad.

the gods picked up my soul. it was a child, not an old woman like my corpse was. i was a child, and i laughed at their gold-veined hands and their stern faces. startled by my audacity, they dropped me.

poor child, they told me. victim of the season war.

/

sometime weeks later i awoke surrounded by warmth with slivers of trepid sunlight kissing my face. i drank eagerly from the sweet water around my roots, stretched my leaden arms only to be slammed back with frigid force.

not yet alive, not really, but not dead. i drank and i waited, i blinked my eyes open once every few days, saw the world in veiled mists and bleak white knives, shook myself awake. i yearned for life and the call of the living around me. it was cold down there in the womb of dirt that i rested in.

winter was angry. i hid from it.

once in a while, my veins would go frozen. icicles stabbed through my branches. season war, the gods had said. i glanced back at my siblings, so empty and dead. was this what it meant to be a blossom? hello? i called out, but all that answered me was the brutal wind.

go back into your hidey-hole, sakura, it said. this isn't your fight.

/

one of the first things to shake me out of my slumber was a trill. she's here! they sang. she's here, finally! wake up! i looked at the sparrows. they perched on my arms. who's here?

spring! she's here!

i brightened. my eyes opened to see the sight, and oh what a sight it was. the breeze was sweet, so, so sweet and warm and the birds crept around now waking me up with their gentle calls and taps. and the sun! the sun painted tapestries on the vibrant grass, peeking through gaps in branches. i was only a sapling, hardly real and yet treated to this sight like an emperor.

she's here, my siblings whispered gently. they danced to the birdsong. pinpricks of pink bloomed from their branches. i was young still, had not yet blossomed, but eagerly i waited. and when i bore my first flowers, peppering from my wooden branches like crystals, like a child's fantasy- spring came to dance with me.

/

when my petals turned to leaves, my siblings told me to gather. start to gather the sunlight like a madman, until i had enough energy to last through months. it was grueling work, but i didn't mind it, not when the sun still shone and the breeze still came to visit once in a while. summer was not as kind as spring, but children still hid under my branches for shade.

gather, i told myself. i knew i would see winter soon. my flowers had faded but not my spirit, and i would wait.

i had no fear, no, the cycle would come again. i had known this well when my soul was presented to the gods.