Memories traveller.
I remember when I was younger and my mother would sneak into my room with a handful of secrets, revealing them to be flowers. Lavender. She said it was to help the sleepless, and that I was. Restless from the monsters under my bed she’d sing me songs, the scent and tingles she’d sent streaming up my spine were seamless, one melting into the other. She’d tuck me in cozily and I’d noticed the smell of a light purple colour that she’d crushed into my palm, a mortar, her soft fingers the pestle. So when the years went by and our time grew shorter, with the linear layout of these memories would I wrestle as I’d strain to remember what our time together was like before you passed finally one last, lost, dreary November. Then one day, as the rain fell outside our house the bushes it struck were made of lavender and I felt like I had been saved, because once again I’d found you.

You bought the house with lavender
seeded in the front porch.
The scent flutters between the doorsill
and through the letterbox
like bills overdue and invoices outstanding. A postal aroma,
envelope glue smells like flowers to me.

I was never granted the privilege of rearranging flowers
You said, there was more to life than flora,
these emerald, sap dripping, saturated stems
Swelling petals fascinated under my untried eyes,
You said I must not even graze the things.

I longed for a taste of the forbidden flora.
Did buds taste like honey? Were they sour like you told me?
Would they poison these supple
and innocent lips, turn them pink to grey?
Could tastebuds kiss the perennial vines,
the posies, the spray of efflorescence
A taste of simple sweetness -

I remember when you ripped the front-porch-lavender.
The roots could not resist your claws.
You sweat to mutilate strained flowers,
You always work harder. Verdure spoiled.
Ravaged, ruptured, tanked soil.

My legs shake
And quake
As I feel
Our hearts beat
In tandem
Chests pressed together
Hearts pounding
To the same rhythm
As the music plays
In the dimly lit room
With the hibiscus candle off to the side
Lavender incense in the corner
Your favorite scents
String lights above us
Nothing in between us
Except our beating hearts
Keeping in time
With Florence
While she sings
About dog days and wrecked ships
My gold nails running down
The sweat on your back
Pressing you against me
To keep our hearts
Together

The lavenders sing your name
every time I walk by
It makes me want to run and scream in the other direction
“No! Stop saying his name!” I cry
The lavenders giggle,
for they will not stop
I changed my route, as I would die if I heard their euphoric chants anymore
One day i realize
“I cannot change my daily routine and way of living over a boy who will never love me in a million years”
And so
I go back to scold the lavenders for their taunts
But they are gone
And so are you

a touch of purple paints itself into the monochrome,
a ray of hope,
a sense of sanity,
a soft palm runs through the lilac labyrinth,
a horse on the horizon,
in my hand,
a hot-cross bun.

Jasmine smells of Lavender to me,
except the plant of color reminds me of a time that was lonelier.
I've held a bit of the scent,
but was compelled to be rid of the dried herb that lingers,
and tickles my legs in my own bed as a reminder
to dust myself off and try again.
I sniff the freshly fallen blossoms I've laid atop
my comforters, fondly.
I try to erase the fear of the spirals,
smelling flowers and escaping sleep
and remember that I've become the company I keep.
So that when I anoint my temples with white petals
I forget the loneliness lavender reminds me of.

the smell of lavender reminds of waiting
the smoke fills the air
violet lights illuminate my room
my lamp flickers
my phone does not ring
the smell of lavender reminds me of waiting
waiting for you