Autochthonous.

Like the red mangrove, I am trapped in a web of my own making. Too many limbs spread far and wide, too much detritus clogging my path through the brackish water. My life and lies are a nursery for misunderstanding, the acrimony breeding like mosquitoes.

"I haven't finished with you yet," but really he had, and though he was still inside me, he was gone as the year was gone. Wasted. I tiptoed from his room but did not tiptoe from his life so much as I left banging pots and pans and slamming doors, indignant and ignominious. He didn't want me when he had me, and when he left me he wanted me back. So I withdrew, disappeared; it was his choice, not mine, and if he wouldn't follow through then I would.

Like the black mangrove I am at the moon's mercy, governed by gravity that is not my own. Were I stronger I'd swim for shore, pull up my roots and plant myself high and dry. But I am stuck in the mud, and can do nothing but gasp for air through straws and wonder how long I can keep this up before I drown.

"You love me," he said, and I did and I do. But never did I exult in reciprocity, never could I, and now more than ever I know that there was nothing there to share. He left with a whimper, left me whimpering, left me wondering what had happened and how it could all fall apart so suddenly. It's a pattern to be repeated indefinitely, it seems, an ebb and a suffocating flow.

Like the white mangrove I've found myself on the sidelines, shedding salt from petioles anemically. But that is exactly what I was put here to do.

"It's always been you," and he was right in a way. It's always me left dazed and blindsided, always me who's left. I'm lost where I don't belong, no sign of rescue anywhere.

Like cattails smothering the sawgrass, there is no room for anything but my love for you.

This is for Ryan, because he asked.