I, Dryad

I am growing as fast as I need to.

I used to stress over milestones.

Independent at eighteen –

(House, car, job)

PHD fast track by twenty-one –

(With someone else’s money)

Married by twenty-three –

(It didn’t matter who)

Exactly three children by thirty –

(By Whocares, my darling)

And of course I laugh now.

Not because those things aren’t possible –

They were possible for me.

I laugh because I know happiness.

I’m not sure I’ll be happy forever.

I’m sure happiness doesn’t work like that.

Pursuing checkpoints along a road…

Gave way to being swept up by a river…

To the edges of a glade full of trees…

And I became a seed there…

The boughs of my branches stretch up like thousands of roads…

If I look to my roots, what should I see

But the worlds I have seen

Outside of my wildest dreams.

No road could have taken me here.

I am growing as fast as I need to.