The Giving Me (a parody)

There once was a tree
and this tree loved a little boy very much.
The boy would climb up the tree’s trunk
and swing in its branches
and make crowns from its leaves.

But the boy got bigger,
and when the tree asked if he wanted to play,
the boy said, “No.”
But he cut down the tree’s branches
and built a house.

Then the boy got older,
and when the tree asked if he wanted to play,
the boy said, “No.”
But he cut down the tree’s trunk
and built a boat.

The boy grew very old and very tired
and he came to the tree,
now a withered stump,
looking for a place to rest.
And the tree said, “No.”

“Go play by yourself, old man,” said the tree.
“You have taken my life and my body,
I am nothing.
You selfish idiot, you cut down one more tree
in a dying forest?
And here you are – oh woe is me –
Go off and die somewhere, won’t you?
Don’t you have a family?
A wife? Children? Some friends?
I am just a tree.
What more can you ask of me?”