I watched you pick flowers
From our garden of Eden
And when I asked you
To plant new trees
You told me that
No matter how many
Seeds enter the soil
Our garden would
Only sprout weeds
And yet I begged you
To never leave

And when I asked you why
You had tasted the fruit  
That was forbidden
For us to eat
You told me that
The fruits of our labor
Had now grown rotten
And that you
Preferred a love
That was sweet

The urgent care is the nursery
Where I choose my seeds with thought.
The doctor is the gardener
Who knows how to fix what I’ve wrought.

She sows the seeds inside my skin,
Yet not with a trowel or ***.
She uses a needle and surgical thread,
With budding knots lined up in a row.

Then she leaves me with my tidy ground
And some knowledge on how I should care
For the lined up plot she’s left to me,
Whose potential I’m required to bear.

The deep rivet I slashed into my skin
Is where the seedlings take root.
The blood from my veins keeps them moist
As the new blossoms stand resolute.

But when the weather grows dark and dreary,
My sprouts need cover from the cold.
So I bundle them up with jeans and sweats
To protect them and let them take hold.

But despite the layers I pile atop,
The small spiny blooms poke through.
I run my fingers back and forth,
And marvel at how fast they grew.

Then after they’ve grown for fourteen days,
I return to the nursery at last.
The gardener plucks and prunes and picks
‘Til the wounds and the blooms come to pass.

So now the perennials have passed us by,
And the sprouts have been taken to bin.
The wound that watered my seedlings’ through,
Has left but a scar on my skin.

Love stumbled into a garden, one sunny spring morning
Light trickled through the branches
Shadows danced along the grass
Birds sang from up above
There were flowers everywhere
Cold wind touched her spine in shivers

"Tend to the garden, love, it needs you"
So she watered the rows of plants, she nurtured the seeds
She watched them bloom, she never looked away

"Tend to each one, love, they need you"
So she knelt on the dirt and spoke to every flower
Caressing their petals, cradling their leaves

Then Summer came

"Never leave their side, love, they need you"
So she never slept, never dreamt
Never ate, never turned away

"Protect the garden, love, it needs you"
So she sheltered it from the storm
Coddled it away from the summer heat

Autumn came

"Careful, love, they're dying"
She felt a panic in her chest, but didn't let it show
She gave them more water, she gave them more care

"Save them, love, they're dying"
Determined, she did everything she could
Paced the garden, wondering what had gone wrong

Winter came

"Heal them, love, look what you've done"
So she watered them more, she cleared up the snow
She brushed away the frost biting at the flowers

"You hurt them, love, look what you've done"
Wilted, here they were
The garden gray, shriveled, lifeless

"I don't understand" Love whispered
Tears fell from her cheeks
The shadow replied,
"You killed the garden, the very one I trusted you to tend"
"But I cared for them, like you told me to" Love shook her head
"Did you?"
"Yes, of course, I sacrificed everything for them"
"Love is not sacrifice"
"Then what is it?"
"Love is letting go."

someone somewhere
is gardening

someone somewhere
will enjoy a colourful
garden

i collect patches of poetry
and pluck them out of day-to-day musings
of a woman born before her time,
as she leisurely runs her hands
across and over too ripe fruits.
i do not complain nor place them
in tattered and worn baskets.
instead, the fruits of this history fall to the ground.
unabashed, they line up with blades of grass.
the wind is strong,
there is a clash.
my words tangle like the branches of unkept bushes
- poetry is enough, i know. i see.
a silhouette of bible verses and revelations coming
from inside me.
reverie and rhythm, festival sighs.
it takes 20 years worth of courage to stay still,
upright.
the berries would taste wonderful, i know.
but the soil is hungrily swallowing my ankles -
serving justice for my leaving,
for my formulating, and then abrupt untangling.
my adoration turning into a mirage of nothing.
the retribution is famished yet true.
and so in my head, it grows, and grows, and grows.
but i can taste the fruits now.
no rhythm, no rhyme,
no muse.
i walk away barefoot, onwards, where i am deserved
where i am worth fighting for,
where i am buried but not so i could die,
but so i could be planted.