The overgrown trees suddenly blacken,
pines and leaves curling into decay
as they fall to the forest floor.
All the flowers rot
and fall to the ground.

Morning falls backward into night.
You blink, but the vision stays the same.
Looking down the trail ahead,
the dead are stretched outward,
all the trees, plants, animals,
with unblinking eyes
stare up into the sky.

It does not move like fire or flood,
but a thought you cannot unthink—
quiet, patient, rewriting green to ash.
The bark peels away,
rings of years unraveling at once.
Roots loosen their grip on the dark soil.

A cold wind arrives, but it carries nothing;
no scent of pine, no promise of rain.
There is only the hush of things once certain,
now erased mid-breath.

You realize then it is not the forest
that is dying.

It is you.