If my heart was a seed
And sprouted veins
That wanted to bloom
The bud would be you.
Blue petals of a Forgetmenot
That he picked
And quietly said "she loves me, she loves me not".
I would wince with each *****
In marvelous pain.
Closing in on each moment that you held the fragile stem between strong fingers.
Every bit would float away with the wind,
Casting your wishes into the sky.
When the stem is finally bare
And you thow it to the ground
I'll be left for dead,
But just know she loved you.
And as the remaining wilts
You'll be forgetting
But I will always be remembering
Hoping all your wishes come true.

You're my stillborn butterfly
afraid of your new beauty
with limp wings,
pried from the safety of your cocoon
by my old hands
in a forest where everything
is charred.
Only the skeletal trees
once lush with life and birdsong
can admire your strange elegance
as you lay listless on their roots
that thirst for a storm of passing love
and thunder.

I want to carry you away
to my field of wildflowers
and resurrect you with the unmasked glow
of the shy moon, who only shows its face
in this meadow of lies.
I'll watch the breeze wake you on my fingertips
then let you fly away, carelessly
into a world of color
I'll never compare to.

Dainty hours
spent with her petal soft smile
lush exchanges
how her mouth makes words warm
delicate  moments
when our eyes held each other
little desolate
when hands separated
and time disconnected us
as it blindly does
without so much as an apology

It was early morning when she descended the steps
to the porch side, teacup in hand, dressed in her nightgown.
Steam billowed from her cup, and with a swallow
she examined her garden of weeds and unexpected peonies.
It was early for blooming peonies; frost, like glass,
still settled on the lawn, reflecting sunrise light of tangerine.

The radiant glow of tangerine
cast amber trails across steps
covered in an icy coating of glass.
Between her fingers she tucked her nightgown
and gingerly treaded the garden of peonies
that melted the frost in one great flower swallow.

The barn swallow,
perched not far from the path of tangerine,
must have also taken notice of the peonies
as he took the first steps
to nest-building. She imagined that his lady bird, also in her nightgown,
would enjoy the flowerbed of glass

that he chose for their home. Sipping her glass
of tea, she admired the familiar swallow
lover as she folded into her nightgown
bouquets of peonies that glistened in the tangerine
sunlight. She took the steps
back to the house, recalling her own swallow’s peonies:

Peonies
placed in vases of glass,
peonies lining the porch steps,
peonies presented over morning tea. With a swallow,
she carefully, methodically lined the tangerine
trail with the peonies from her nightgown.

Her nightgown,
stained with the rouge petals of peonies,
dragged along the tangerine
terrace of glass,
blood red with the memory of her swallow
lover’s peony-petaled steps.

The steps to the house creaked beneath her nightgown.
The barn swallow, quieted by the rouge of the peonies,
shut his glass eyes to the skies of tangerine.

Trace the scars at her back.
You'll find a constellation.
Trace her tears when it streaks down her cheeks.
You'll find a lonely river.
Trace her hair strands.
You'll find an aromatic flowerbed.
Trace her fingertips.
You'll find hurricanes and tornadoes.
Trace her soul.
You'll find yourself.

there was a time
when you were something
for me to begin
like a space where our roots
could settle in
we grew around each other slowly
the buds of ourselves
blooming in the quietest way

many suns have warmed
our leaves since then
our petals lost their colour and scent
and i still blame the rain
for washing you out
so i don’t have to remember
that there was such a thing as
loving you too much

I'd never cared for flowers
Symbols of affection that wilt
And forget memories
And fall apart in kitchens and bedrooms and strew their pieces on the floors
Dried and broken after only days of being lovely
Flowers with their alternating patterns of
Unreliable determinations
Claiming every other petal as an opposite declaration
Of a determination
Of love
And I never liked removing thorns from roses
Because they added something truthful and
Poetic

But when you gave me flowers
I held them to my heart and let my eyes dance across the kaleidoscope that they created in a glass vase
I let them live for longer than they did
Because they were still pretty even when no one else seemed to think so
And when they hang dried on a wall
Still colorful but slightly brittle
Maybe they'll stay like that if I just don't touch them
When you gave me flowers
I plucked off every other petal
Into a bouquet of He-Loves-Me
Because for once there was no doubt
For once I believed the sentiment in the flowers and the words from your lips as you handed them over
The lack of nots in the petals
Pulling apart the knots in my stomach
He loves me
He loves me
Truer than the dirt that holds
Wilting symbols of affection
Sweeter than the honey
Of their pollinators
He loves me
He loves me
A garden of something new and beautiful
Perennial and built on symbolism after all

Until you let me know that dead flowers were just dead flowers
That they were past their worth
And metaphors aren't worth the dirt they were grown in
That perennials can't return
When you've salted the soil
And brittle flowers on the wall should always be removed
But I always lived in metaphors anyway
And I had a new appreciation for flowers that I didn't want to lose
I was no longer a rose
But a thorn
I always thought smooth stems were so boring
Not to mention dishonest
But I didn't want to make you bleed
So painfully I dug an olive branch from my rib cage
Then realizing that a ****** token may not be so well received
I decorated it with a bouquet of blue Forget-Me-Nots
But you plucked off every other petal
And handed back an array of He-Loves-Me-Nots
He loves me not
And there was no doubt in the sentiment
The sentience of metaphors dying all around me
When all I know is metaphors
And flowers were never just flowers
And words were never just words
But both are found on gravestones and poems and apologies
And parallels have fallen into nice and even spacing
Reducing flowers to clichés
Of alternating promises
Of He loves me and
He loves me not
Of broken promises
He loves me
Not

In swirling clouds of silver lace
The disk of Luna lies concealed
Across the Autumn skies they race
Over this shadow realm surreal.

On evening shadows now, I gaze
A gentle wind swirls through the trees
From depths of sleep, I watch half-dazed
Thin branches stirring in the breeze.

Lights flickering neath mystic skies
Through gaps in trees, they shine within
Entranced, my mind, I watch surprised
This spectral beauty in the wind.

In these dark shadows, spirits drift
Translucent ghosts and dryads old
From this meadow, I sense their gift
Strange stories from the wood untold.

Oh let me join thy sylvan fest
Pale spirits of this Solstice night
Before the Moon sets in the west
We'll revel neath her misty light.

Nothing brings more joy to me,
Than dark skies and thunder claps,
Heaven's sprinklers dousing the land,
Pounding on roof tops, surging down drains.
The dark skies casting down life's very sustanance,
Bring on the floods of torrential rains,
I'm dying to dance in the streets,
And feel the water soak into my clothes,
Drenching me to the very core of my being,
Because I just can't get enough of dark skies.