A.W. Books & Poetry

Sometimes I wonder about the apples on trees sunning themselves in vast orchards under the sugary sun. They grow and ripen and turn to deep tangy hues as their core sweetens. So innocent, so pure; they wait. They wait for the greedy hands of a child or farmer to pluck them off their maternal stem, to show them that they are as beautiful and desirable as they have always vied to be, as they longed for. Some apples reach this nirvana and fulfill their desire, but some are left on their stems to wait. They wait for the child or the farmer that will never come. They wait for the soft touch of laughter and the warm smell of cinnamon sugar in a bright kitchen. They wait and wait and they begin to rot. Black spot by tormenting black spot, they wither and wrinkle until their once lustrous peel is brown and shrunken. They fall off their stem that held them to their life source, their dreams, and land on the Earth in a worthless heap. Yet, what they cease to know is soon, the rains will come; soon, their withered skin will dissolve into the soil that birthed them, leaving shiny ebony pods littered on the soil. They do not know that the soil will blanket them and raise them as their own once more and soon they will spout. They do not know that when next spring comes, they will be serendipitous arbors, adorned in fragile pink blossoms, which will powder themseves with pollen in youthful spirits and mature into the beautiful fruit they once were no so long ago. They do not know that the apples who were once chosen by cheeky children have been discarded in tin cans and will never see the sun again. They do not know yet they are the real chosen ones and soon, very soon, their reign will begin.

-Annalise Wellman