I loved you like spring loves the thaw,
like lungs crave air,
like art bleeds from the soul of the artist.
And I thought love was enough
to keep the thorns from drawing blood.
I thought devotion would bloom into safety—
but I was only watering a graveyard.

The sickness started slow.
First, a cough—
a whisper of rose dust on my tongue.
Then came the petals,
delicate at first,
pink and trembling with hope.
I cradled them like confessions,
believed they were proof of love.

But they kept coming—
petal after petal,
each one heavy with what you wouldn’t give back.
You kissed me with a smile,
while my lungs filled with flowers
planted by hands that never loved me,
only held me for convenience,
for control,
for conquest.

You were a storm beneath soft skin,
a poison wrapped in perfume.
And I loved you—
God, I loved you,
even while you killed parts of me
with your indifference,
even before I knew the rot ran deeper
than abandonment.

Now I know.
Now I know what you are.
A ****** draped in sunlight,
a predator with a paintbrush smile.
You painted me pretty,
then picked me apart.
And I mistook the pain for passion,
your silence for mystery,
your selfishness for sadness.

My body remembers every time
you touched without love,
every moment I mistook trauma for intimacy.
The petals grew darker—
maroon now,
coated in blood,
choking me from within.

I coughed them into my hands,
and still whispered your name
as if you’d come back with kindness,
as if you were ever kind.

I don’t want to mourn you.
I want to mourn me—
the version of me who still believed in you,
who still thought love was supposed to hurt
but not like this.
Never like this.

Hanahaki, they call it—
the disease of unreturned love.
But this isn’t love anymore.
This is grief.
This is rage.
This is survival.

And someday,
someday I’ll breathe again,
clear-chested, flowerless,
free.

The sun still shines, the breeze still calls,
The rain still taps, the silence falls.
And when the moment feels just right,
The petals burst, a gift to sight.

The seed has slept, the world has spun,
The waiting game is nearly done.
The petals stretch, the colors gleam,
Awakening from winter’s dream.

It did not rush, it did not break,
It bloomed when time was sure to take.
A lesson whispered through the air—
Some things must wait to grow so fair.

The soil cradles the seed,
the seed cradles a secret.

It knows it can bloom.
Knows the sun will greet it,
the rain will nourish it,
the bees will come.

Yet still,
it waits.

Because blooming is not just survival—
it is choosing to step into the light.