Dripping rain on dried leaves
Sounds like
a thousand hearts breaking at once
Pitter patters of shatter
Outweigh the branch as I stand
Under the magnolia tree
Pale blue sky, flat and wide
Like lead paint on cement walls
Famished for flourish
There I stand
Under a magnolia tree
Steel bars and barren walls
I was trapped inside of a
Melancholic mahogany menagerie
Acting for praise and praising the act
I rotted away
Under a magnolia tree
Rhyme or reason
Went out the window as I did
Unburdened, unfettered, unsteady
Head over heels, mind over
Windowsill as I tore free
Like magnolia from tree
Cement road and a path unknown
I chose gravel to skin my heels over
Smooth stone to whittle me down
Rain dripped onto me and I broke
Into dried leaves and a
dependence on diseased dreams
Unsheltered, I cried out
For my magnolia tree
Petrichor mist and symbolic limits
Soften the ground under my feet
Sinking like feeling into
Solitary soul-worn saturnine
There is no hope for me outside of my cage
I return wasted
To my magnolia tree