I took a razor blade
To cut away the strangling root
I thought was snaking up around my family tree
It was hard
I don’t like cutting
But I steeled myself
I was afraid: afraid to act, afraid not to act
It was not done thoughtlessly
But it was desperate
I cut the root
And the bleeding started
The blood flowed out
Pain and anguish and sullen grief
There was so much
I could not see, until later
It was not a root
It was an artery
I had cut the tie that binds