Life is a *****
And then we die
I ask why
Why must life be hard?
Life should be full of love and joy
Not trauma and pain

I hold in my hand
my seeds of anger,
of resentment,
of frustration,
of bitterness,
of regret.

What flowers will grow from these seeds I wonder?
What colour will they be?
What of their perfume?

I cast the seeds onto the ground
where they were swallowed by the Earth.
I watered the ground where they fell and now I wait …

The sun rose and fell for many days
before I returned to my plot and there they were:
blooms dark as night
atop black stems
and jagged leaves.

And a strange perfume filled the air:
not foul as I would have thought
but pleasant,
intoxicating even.

I breathed deep,
savouring the aroma,
and a sense of calm overwhelmed my senses.

I shut my eyes,
basking in their bouquet.

And when I opened them
mere moments later,
I held in my hand
a few seeds,
seeds like no others I have ever seen;
they seemed to shimmer in the light.

I cast the seeds onto the ground
and they were swallowed by the Earth.
I watered the ground where they fell and now I wait …

The sun rose and fell for many days
before I returned to my plot and there they were:
blooms white, bright as day
atop the greenest stems
and greenest leaves.

Now I had a simple choice:
which of the blooms to choose?
Should it be those blackest blooms
dark like the night
or the white bright blooms,
leaving the others
to wither and die from neglect?

I am yet to decide …

As always, when no one's awake,
my thoughts begin to eat me alive.
When I’m weakest—
when no one's watching—
I finally break down.

My eyes bleed
until sorrow drains from my face,
leaving nothing left to see.

My heart sinks
a little deeper each time
into a dark, hollow space
no one could ever reach.

There, my sorrows feast on me
second by second—
yet somehow, I’m still here.

No liquor strong enough
to keep me from drowning.
I walk into
a never-ending darkness,

awake—
in flesh,
adrift in shadow.