I dreamed the forest remembered me

I was walking through a stand of old pines, not in any place I knew, but the air smelled like rain on dry needles and something older—like the memory of fire. The trees didn’t move, but I felt them watching. One turned its trunk slightly, just enough to show a face in the bark: mine, but younger, with no scars. I didn’t speak. It didn’t need to. We stood there until the light changed, not from day to night, but from being seen to being forgotten. And then I woke up with my hands still open, as if I’d been holding something that wasn’t there.