I don’t want to be the only wildflower growing
in the concrete, that simple lonesome white flower.
Loneliness runs fragile fingertips through my hair,
stroking my scalp gently,
caressing me into something I did not know I wanted.

my child hands enveloping themselves as lightly as I could
white petals fell into my open hand,
crushed,
they wither, browned, decayed.
They age, tainted by inevitability of getting older.

Learning how desire works,
I watched candles with short wicks burn out and not down,
the wax a painful reminder on my fingertips.
Sometimes relationships,
sometimes intimacy scorches and doesn’t slowly burn.

I remember now, that before I learned to love,
My childlike innocence watched the morning glories
grow over and twist around the chain link fence that separated
my yard and our neighbors.
Its rust almost too rough to cut through the fragile petals.
Trumpets of glory flowering in the early light of day
spiraling, growing on our trash cans.
They just longed to be touched,
to be admired for all that they were.