The difficult thing about a love poem
is that it doesn’t want to be one.
You see! I’ve already let the meter go
wherever it wants to roam, for the sake of fun,
and to make my point. It’s sort of like the way
our feet get tangled when we sleep, and we trip
into each other’s dreams. Poetry can’t contain
how gently you kissed me — even when I was sick.
This type of love requires an honesty
that poetry can’t express. A careful glance,
chocolates, red wine and all the rest
can’t capture the drunk-in-love ways we’ve danced — 
or the magic of long plants. But who’ll blame me for
trying to count the ways that I adore you?
             
                                           —and in fourteen lines, no less.

Don't show your scars, or they might multiply.
They spread and spread, and give more pain.
They make friends angry, and make friends sad.
You lose more acquaintances, and gain more enemies.

She gave me a daisy
Although she didn’t know
That I fall in love so easy
And that it’s sure to grow.

She gave me a lilac
Somehow she’s unaware
That she cannot turn back
And that she should beware.

She gave me an orchid
And I know it’s been said
There’s something bad she did
And now she hangs down dead.

Hot iron pressed against my chest. My skin tears and muscles rip. My ribs and my spine are now broken. I fall to the ground, and break my skull. I am stepped on. I am crushed. My guts are spilling over the floor. I am dead.
I feel like I can barely breathe. Is it really that difficult to see me the way I am?

We met in August, and became fast friends.
Eventually you grew a garden for me, filled with roses and daisies, any kind of flower you can imagine.
That garden grew. It was beautiful.
You occasionally hinted at the fact that you grew a garden for me, but you never told me directly.
I knew there was a garden there.
I grew one for you too. But it was too late.
I said your garden hints made me queasy. That was before my garden grew.
You decided to take out a flamethrower, and burn your garden to the ground, just as my roses started to bloom. It didn’t hurt you.

I told you about my garden. You didn’t like it.

You say you can’t grow things. You say you’ve done it too many times with it ending up wilting.
Yet now you’ve grown a garden for another person.

And mine is wilting. I need water.