there are flowers growing in the curves of my ears
and honey dancing off the tip of my tongue.

there are roses that tint my vision with petals of pink
and hyacinths dye my skin with a faint color between forget-me-not and periwinkle.

there are vines that creep up through the gaps in my ribs, soft limbs of green to curl a cage around the rice paper butterfly in my chest.



there are flowers growing in the curves of my ears,



and yet I can still hear every word you say.


every sting, every snarl, every bite until the line between humanity and bloodlust is blurred with the plague painted in the air.

your words hurt the thread and needle butterfly, beating its wings faintly against the thorns cracking my bones into splinters.

every

beat

is

weaker

and



weaker



until the flowers wither at the corners, mourning the loss of every leaf.

until the honey tastes of vinegar, acid burning at the walls of my mouth.

until the roses turn dusty and the hyacinths are more eggshell than cornflower.

until the spun glass butterfly beats its last fight against the growing infestation.
shattering.
infinitesimal.





all that’s left for the flowers to do is drink up the leftover gasoline and feed off of the light of your apocalypse.