The Twisted Tree

by Rachel Burge

Brian takes out a book and cracks open the spine. Anyone who does that is not a good person as far as I’m concerned. It’s up there with cruelty to kittens and nose-picking in public.

Pain like that stays with you; it seeps out of your pores and into the fibres of your clothes, and nothing can remove the stain of a soul.

They passed them back and forth to one another, like a stitch made over and over, until they became fastened into the fabric of our lives.

But a life cannot be made up of summers – and winter brings with it hard choices.

‘A person who has a poor start in life can still weave a good tapestry, if they make the right choices.’ She whispered, ‘Strengthen what’s there, my child, and no one will notice the holes.’

Half of who we are is given to us and can’t be changed, but the rest depends on our actions.

‘No one can tell the story of you, but you. Some people are gifted with a gilded tongue. They will tell you who you are with such conviction that you may actually believe them, but this is a reflection, not the truth, for the story of you is not yet written.’

You write the story of you every day with your thoughts, words and deeds. You create yourself. You get to decide your story. No one else. You.’