i carry petals beneath my skin / one for each time he made me weep / they glisten with decay and melt away as a part of me / i feel the fragments shift when he leaves / for weeks at a time i sit lonely in fields / and watch him with a new bride / they travel seas and glittering streets / streets i will never get to see / new daughters reach for his hands / new homes wrap their walls around him / and i keep his petals next to my ribs / their webbed veins stretching, breaking / purpling against brittle white bone / because with each lung inhale / distance blossoms between us / like second generation flowers / from the seeds of my poisoned petals / the south makes the temperature change / my seasonal depression swings / but i never seem to be as happy as i once was / and flowers never grow in freezing weather / so i give them all away as he leaves / for a warmer sky to breathe beneath / and wonder if he misses the petals i kept / for myself to carry / a lovely burden, sweet / and delicate like the first bite / of ripe, sticky fruit / but a wound in my side / all the same /