The prompt:

Write a myth/legend/fable/allegory as to why trees lose their leaves every Fall. Or interpret this photo any way you please, with a focus on Fall.

I am a Maple Tree. My leaves are usually the colors of a pumpkin pie. They absorb the warm tangerine and lemon rays of the sunlight that beats down on me from above the wooded plains I live in. My leaves keep me warm. They are who I am, my protective barrier. The leaves on my branches differentiate me from the Oaks, the Birches, the Beeches, and the Firs that I share this earth with. As you cling to your chestnut colored wool sweater, as you hike along these woods, I tightly hold onto my leaves for the same comfort and support. I feel more appropriate keeping my leaves on, rather than exposing myself like us trees must do every year. We do so during the mating season in the hopes of finding a male who believes that our naked trunks, raw branches, and leafless twigs are beautiful.

It is rare for us trees to keep our leaves through the months of October to December. When I first started to grow into this life as a young sapling, I never thought I would be a part of it. I saw the trees around me without their leaves to be lonely, in longing search of a spouse. As all of my friends around me lost their leaves, I began to see it as something I had to be a part of, or at least experience. I would listen to their stories of how they confidently shook off their leaves for the first time. “But didn’t you feel so helpless?” I would ask the older trees, searching for advice or guidance.

The first time I experienced the month of October, I felt cold and transparent. I wanted to be seen and accepted but I felt like I was just going through the motions. It was hard for me to believe that the older trees saw losing their leaves as a holy ceremony. My first time did not feel special. When the time came, I felt like I was being taken advantage of. Your kind would even walk by and photograph my nakedness to show to all of their friends. I stood bare among other trees whose bodies were unique and intricate, unlike my own. My bark was plain and vertical striped, while the Beeches beside me had bark as smooth as stone. I looked around at the Birches that had peeling bark and the other maple families that had rough ridges. Some trees enjoy October and stand firmly rooted in the ground during this time of the year because they feel desired. Meanwhile, I hunched over and waited as the time passed until it finally ended. They shook their branches beside me, as their leaves fell to the ground and the world suddenly became silent.

To me, I feel most beautiful when I am able to decorate myself, to cover the wooden pieces I am made of that remain as hard as steel. As trees, we are taught to trade our strength with fragility and to lose a piece of ourselves just so we can gain approval, a part in which we never really needed. This deep belonging, the need we all have to fit in is rooted within all of us. Human or nature, the immense hole I have in my trunk is not unlike the one you feel within your stomach.