After my mother died, my room was filled with roses.  When the flowers died, my room was filled with their sweet, rotten stench for weeks on end; it sunk into my pores and into my DNA and years later, I still smell like dead roses.
                                                 My sister confuses this smell with dead lilies.

A bouquet of red roses was placed atop my mother’s coffin as it lowered six
feet down into the earth.  After the roses died, I wonder if my mother could
smell them like I did?  I wonder if she still smells them, or, more likely, how long it took for the roses to disintegrate into dust like her?  

We don’t talk about the body after death because we don’t like to be reminded of how vulnerable we really are. In high school, a boy asked me to prom using roses and lilies that were all different shades of reds and oranges and yellows like fire.  Lilies like funerals and tombstones and formaldehyde.

I don’t think he meant to remind me of death.  I don’t think his intention was to place me in a casket similar to my mother’s with its pink padded walls.  I don’t think he realized that’s where I went when I saw his basement covered in bouquets of hellfire.  I think he meant the roses to be romantic,

but I looked at them and saw my mother’s putrefying face, saw her intestines eaten away by savage bacteria and bugs, saw her eyelids drying out and peeling back like black and dead and withered lily petals.  Embalming does not prevent decomposition, only prolongs it.  I have embalmed my mother's
memory in the shape of a teal notebook.  I cannot tell if it has
                                                                       begun to decay or not.

Have you felt its bite?

The terrible

Horrendous

Ever-opening

Maw that
Threatens to
Devour all my

Certainty.

It gorges upon all that is
Bright.
Black breath flows
Over me
A
Blight
that saps my strength

My soul yearns to take flight!

Yet here i remain
Paralyzed by the
Gaze of this unrelenting
Beast,
Doubt.

Will there be
Restoration?
Can i hope for
Resuscitation?

Or is my yearning
Merely the
Death throes of
Passion

Burning

Burning

Burning

Out like a
Candle
Lit dinner?  

It shall not
Come from you,
Romance.

You rose-colored
Vagabond.
Food for the maidens
Dream.
Despoiler of my
self
esteem.

i require another
To sustain
Me.

i know it can
Be found.
One who can
Remove this yoke
From me.

Who can vanquish this doubt?

Who shall turn my discordant
notes
of Sin
Into a sinphony?

He is the
One

That will catch my boulder
As it threatens to crush
Me
At the bottom of this
Hill.

So come to me!

i haven’t the strength to yell.

If you can hear
Then
You are
Well acquainted with
My
Bones
Breaking.

i am not
Strong.

Of this i
know
For the wilting of the
Lily
Told me
so.

it makes you less sad, I will die by your hand
Hope you find out what you are; already know what I am
And if it makes you less sad, we'll start talking again
You can tell me how vile I already know that I am
I'll grow old, start acting my age
It'll be a brand new day in a life that you hate
A crown of gold, a heart that's harder than stone
And it hurts to hold on, but it's missed when it's gone

Call me a safe bet, I'm betting I'm not
I'm glad that you can forgive, only hoping as time goes, you can forget

If it makes you less sad, I'll move out of this state
You can keep to yourself, I'll keep out of your way
And if it makes you less sad, I'll take your pictures all down
Every picture you paint, I will paint myself out
It's cold as a tomb, and it's dark in your room
When I sneak to your bed to pour salt in your wounds
So call it quits, or get a grip
You say you wanted a solution; you just wanted to be missed

You are calm and reposed
Let your beauty unfold
Pale white, like the skin stretched over your bones
Spring keeps you ever close
You are second-hand smoke
You are so fragile and thin, standing trial for your sins
Holding on to yourself the best you can
You are the smell before rain
You are the blood in my veins

Painting the lily black
Tainted by the mist of my heart
It cripples and dies
Surrender to hatred
Compassion I lack
An urge to tear something apart
Resting in human cries
It smothers my hatred
As a wolf running with the pack
Acceleration burns my heart
Upset by your twisted lies
They are fueling my hatred

you loved and destroyed me
*but came back with tragedy

The lily of life, full of humility and devotion - the beautiful kind
that everyone would choose to pick from the fields I think you'll find.
One who defied the definition of a heroic inspiration,
your talent outshone all others; you caused quite the sensation.

You tenaciously grasped onto your stem of life
with the insidious poison of demise within your cells rife,
your colours darkening and fading away,
and yet you remained God's most beautiful creation each and every day.

As your petals fluttered down, by your side was your wife
while you heart-wrenchingly closed the circle of your life.
Now, we all shall miss watching you bloom through the days
and we will remember you, forever and ALWAYS .

White lady of the lake what makes you oh so Devine?

Sitting there in the water like earths own sweetest daughter!
Into thy silver throne where now thou sit thy silken leaves all dusky around thee knit.

White lady of the lake what makes you oh so Devine?

She sits in water colour rich as wine. Her golden crown sits on her head glinting in the sun giving her all the glory of one.

White lady of the lake what makes you oh so Devine?

She sits in winter water with a wavy shawl of vine, waiting for the sun to come light the sky all up. Waiting for the sun to come fill her silver cup.