My garden, bedded
in rest.
The roses bloomed like chiffon twirls
shine or shade
You approached with vested
Interest
Your neon eye-shadow, your black-tar curls
With intent like clumsy mower blades
You brought a dandelion from my neighbor’s lawn.
Its puff splitting, flying from your breath like a song from
Your lips, I thought a wish flew along.
There was no wish; just seeds, scattered. Gone.
You entered my home, keeping me captive.
I thought the walls closed every time you left.
Breath shallow, you told me I was maladaptive.
You found him, you were gone. Only the ring I gave you was left.
I was wrong; walls didn’t crumble because you were gone, but
Because you were here, my foundation crumbled from
Morning glories, untended, the vines grew too long, and
In and out of the concrete, my rose bushes crumpled.
I near let my home die
I rebuilt from rubble what’s mine
Late summer, I toiled, upturning rose root.
Piled the brush, for us, a pyre.
A former self turns to a pile of empty bottles and soot
My friends called it your wake, this bonfire.
Leaves fell, still, I toiled.
Killing the vines with water I boiled.
Tilling the land, laying rose-ash under soil.
Aching back, 56 degrees, sweat, too tired to pull the splinters.
Then came winter.
Ice blew over and all those weeds died.
It started to seem funny, all those times I cried
Over You.
I find my love was never a closet;
A trap meant for one, but
a well that runs deep and
the groundwater clean.
Spring comes, green growth peaks into view
I breathe the air, happy with the year in review.
I plant rhododendrons where common roses bloomed and
A vegetable patch where grass once grew.
My garden flourishes with life and color.
I look to my garden wanting just to tend
my garden, it grows like feelings for new lovers.
I think of how it will look by summer’s end.
Grass like fingers reaching to the sun with new
life, prospering. As the rhododendrons rise from
the care I’m fostering and tomatoes will
ripen and shine when the sun gives luster, and
Fruits from the vine plump with nectar inside.
Sustenance for me, of course,
A boon to the birds, the bees
As She and her soft hands help tend my crop
Pulling stray weeds, sweating from the force.
The flowers will grow in colorful clusters like
July fireworks, a boom for every new bloom.
The difference, Rose, is I
trust her.
She will not turn my garden, my home
into another crumbling tomb.
This is an obvious extended metaphor about a break-up portrayed through gardening. It took some great pains to sidestep cliché when using themes of death and life. I really just wanted to avoid abstractions through the whole thing, since it's a year-in-review after being left by my ex fiancé of five years. Living together with her, my eccentricities were constantly criticized to the point I was silent, she literally called me worthless and said I never had anything substantial to say. So, when she left, I was without purpose. I attempted suicide, woke up from that and realized I had no identity. When that happened, I realized I had the opportunity to build one from scratch. A year of working day in and day out and I'm now a senior in college in journalism. I'm doing well, I'm proud of who I am and I won't let anyone take that from me.