Poppies blossom like open cuts. Ripe and red, they fill the air With a cloying sweetness So potent anyone downwind Must shut their eyes and breathe Through open mouths. Tasting The breath of flowers, they grow Nauseous and afraid.
The fields sway in the hot breeze Until they resemble an ocean aflame - It is here, among these poppies, I have Found the blood of the Earth. It is moist and toxic, an acid eating away the soles Of all that wade through it. How many gaunt, pale bundles of bone Rest below these soft, red petals? No one dares to count.
People do not fear such Lovely things - if theyβve only seen Pictures. How nice it must be To know nothing of poppies But their color, their shape. They seem almost beautiful - But you know better.
You have stood waist deep in the Malignant fields, breathing the air That slowed your limbs - Turning your arms and legs into pendulums Swaying to the beat of the buds That encircle them - Until you knelt, weighed down, Nearly submerged by saccharine terrors, And cried, hoping the water leaking from your heart Would put out the fires you find yourself embracing. After all, during the darker hours Any light is better than no light at all (Or so something whispers in your tired ear).
You know the horror of poppies - But still you have yet to plunge Past the black eyes of those red beasts - For when the wind blows clean, cold Air to you what do you do? You raise your arms and let yourself Feel as though you can fly - And one dayβ¦one day You will look down And see yourself above A ground free of poppies.