Where the Pines Keep Their Secrets

Perhaps i do not want healing
Perhaps i only want a single place
that asks nothing of me -
not even an explanation
for why i am so tired.

Everyone speaks of finding peace,
as if it were misplaced somewhere.
I only wanted a corner of the world
where my exhaustion could rest
without being mistaken for weakness,
where no one would look at my face
and ask if I was alright.

Look at this house -
how far it has withdrawn,
how carefully it hides itself
among the pines, as though someone
once decided it deserved
to be kept from the world's reach.
That is all I ever wanted too.

My exhaustion was never loud.
It taught itself to whisper,
careful not to disturb
anyone's peace but my own.

I smiled through things
that should have undone me in public,
and let myself come undone instead
in rooms no one ever entered.

These trees do not ask what happened to me.
They simply grow around my silence,
as if they always knew
I had come here
to stop performing.