“… also known as the skeleton flower, has white petals that turn translucent with rain. When dry, they revert to white.” – Wikipedia
They call it the skeleton flower; its petals change from chalk to crystal when it rains; melodic droplets wash away the white, leaving transparent fingerprints.
12:01 p.m. You showed me my reflection in a funhouse mirror and told me I was ugly.
You soaked me with your scorn; I wilted and hoped you couldn’t see through my skin. I think I saw through yours.
My exposed arteries were empty, unfulfilled because years ago I hid my dreams, only small brown seeds, in a shoebox under my bed; discarded to please the unpleasable.
I saw you, drenched and dropping drips; you tried to sprinkle them off on others.
So, I strung my tears on a necklace to remind me never to treat anyone the way you treated yourself. Then I took out that old shoebox from under the bed; I could feel my dreams rattling as I took off the lid little yellow hearts that I’d ripped from my core burst from the seeds and I wound them around my fingers like rings;
I’ve worn them ever since.
2:01 p.m. I dried. My skin was a succulent white and I promised, I would never let anyone, tell me who I was again.