your name on my lips,
a whisper in the night
-ten thousand enunciations,
do you even know my name?
what’s my name?

they fall like rain
white and pink and red and blue,
fluttering wings, little butterflies
you call them pretty,
as they cascade to the floor,
little whirlwinds,
tiny storms.

roses, roses,
they all fall down,
pick up my petals
i’ll be ashes in the ground.

in my dreams,
you twirl me around,
soft hands in my hair,
eyes on mine,
golden mornings and moonlit nights.

each morning, morning i wake in your arms,
every night we’re under the garden’s bridges,
a soft waltz,
for softer caresses,
and yet the petals fall all around.

roses, roses,
they all fall down,
pick up my petals
i’ll be ashes in the ground.

i don’t dream anymore,
all my days i lay in the sunlight
-dreams of mornings fill my head,
as i grasp rose petals,
strewn like dreams all around.

summer turns to winter,
spring won’t come for me,
the last spring i’ll ever know,
there are rose petals on top of me and i’m six feet below.  

roses, roses,
they all fell down,
you didn’t pick up my petals
so now i’m ashes in the ground.

Do you see them, love?
All of these small, pretty things?
Drops of crimson upon white
They float away from me, proof of my blight—
Do you see it now, love?
The blooms that have taken hold in me,
The roots that cramp my chest,
They leave little room for much else, love—
For in the end, love,
These blooms were for you.
The pain they caused,
The havoc they reaped,
Every last petal drips for you.
Do you see it now, love?
The stolen glances,
The soft caresses,
The smiles that were only for you?
I hope you see it now, love
And choke on it as hard as I have for you.
They have taken hold and they are not going to leave
These soft blooms that will inevitably spell my doom
I wish you could have seen it sooner, love—
For these petals I bleed, I bleed them all for you.
The blooms have taken over, now,
There’s really nothing left to do
Wait and watch in horror and aghast
As my lungs are drained of life
The thorns pierce my heart and veins, love—
Yes, there’s nothing here for you
Except to weep for all of the things you couldn’t see
But now, with death, you do.
A glorious cascade of beauty falls around me
Shades of red cover my face
Petals float among the spots in my vision
You cry in the unearthly still
As the heartbreak disease finds its purpose finally fulfilled.

You left me to die
I believed in love one day
while petals hushed me

only if it wasn’t fictional and i got infected,
don’t even bother thinking about
my plan to remove the flowers i had
in my lungs-
if that means i’ll have to feel
completely numb
towards your presence afterwards.

because you are
someone whose all my senses
have always been so familiar with,
and as much as i can barely breathe
through the roots that planted deep
in my soul,
i am more than willing to be able to live
with this feelings for you.

though you really are the reason
that suffocates me,
i am afraid that i can’t differentiate
whether it was flowers or happiness
that clogged up my neck.

then i’ll choose to keep them growing
and even water them gently
with many endearing thoughts of you

until the time will come
and the flowers finally drowning me in,
i won’t ever blame you
for making this love
becomes the death of me

shes got me coughing up flowers
again and again
and though i love them
and i keep every petal
i can not breathe

often written
is a condition
they call it
the “hanahaki” disease

the details are
that you shall fall in love
it shall be unrequited
and you shall cough up flowers
until you die

i had always wondered
why i never caught
the coughing flower disease

not that i
wanted to die, of course
it’s just

i thought my feelings for you
were stronger than any wind
wider than any land
deeper than any ocean
and my dear
it was a fact
that you did not love me back
not the way i thought
i wanted you to

time passed
and i came to realise
the reason my love for you
did not **** me
was not because it wasn’t strong enough

the reason i had not died
death my the flowers growing in my lungs
is because my love for you was not “real”
because you were not “real”
not really

you were an idol
on the other side of the screen
and no matter how much i supported you
adored you
loved you

we would never be anything more
than an idol
smiling for a living
and a fan
whose smile you saved

and deep in my heart
perhaps, that, i already knew

if i were to cough up flowers
stained with one-sided love
it would be a rose
made of plastic
not “real”
not really
but it would last forever

just like the love
between you
and me