He tells me I am a leaf high on a tree. Inside I am intricate. Delicate. I tell him he is water running along the earth. Simple. Essential. He is life. I awake one day to find myself changed. I am parched, yellow, shrivelled. I crinkle when I move. He is water, unchanging. The ground has eroded, rerouting him away from me. I take a last look, as I fall, at the lush landscape he runs toward, the verdant garden sprawling forth. I am a leaf. Without water, I wither.