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# Growing Under an Apricot Tree
- URL: https://www.merionwest.com/growing-under-an-apricot-tree/
- Published: 2026-09-21T21:47:48.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T01:52:18.000Z
- Description: Punyasloka Mohapatra
- Author: MW Editors
- Tags: Poetry, Arts

> The tree was already there  
> before I learned my name—  
> crooked trunk, bark split in places,  
> sap drying like old wounds.

> My father said it needed discipline.  
> Every winter, he cut it back hard.  
> “Too many branches,” he’d mutter,  
> as if excess were a kind of sin.

> I learned early  
> how to stand where the light thinned.

> Apricots came small at first,  
> tight-fleshed, sour.  
> He’d bite into one, wince,  
> say nothing—  
> which was worse than saying it.

> By then, I knew  
> what silence meant.

> He showed me how to prune:  
> not where the branch wanted to grow,  
> but where it should have known better.

> “Clean cuts,” he said.  
> “No hesitation.”

> I tried to grow straight after that.  
> Kept my questions short.  
> Learned the weight of unsaid things,  
> how they hang heavier than fruit.

> Still, every spring,  
> the tree went a little wild—  
> green pushing past the careful lines,  
> blossoms opening  
> without asking.

> He’d stand there, looking up,  
> already measuring what to remove.

> Once, I climbed it  
> when he wasn’t home.  
> Higher than I was allowed.  
> The branches thinned,  
> then held.

> From up there  
> the yard looked small,  
> his rules—smaller.

> I ate an apricot before it was ready.  
> It was sharp, almost bitter.  
> I didn’t spit it out.

> When I came down,  
> there was sap on my palms,  
> sticky, refusing to wash off.

> That evening, he noticed the broken twig.  
> Not me.

> Now the tree is taller than the house.  
> He can’t reach the top anymore.

> Some branches go where they want.  
> Some still bear the marks  
> of where he cut them back.

> The fruit is better these days—  
> soft, almost too sweet.

> I eat it standing under the shade  
> he tried to keep in check,  
> and for a moment  
> I don’t know

> If I grew despite him,  
> or exactly the way he meant me to.

### 

### Punyasloka Mohapatra is a poet in India.