Love's vine stems from the heart;
it is ivy creeping through iron gates.
Wanders free through stony soil,
rushing stream, and bank.
It can loiter in the garden,
and fall victim to the spring rain.
But do not despair, my dear,
for its passion is like a flame:
Forever burning in its tendrils,
its coiled roots and leaves;
survives environs menace,
summer's blaze, and winter's freeze.

God is a name for the smell of squash plants under the noonday sun.

When the clouds are moving across the sky and you're drifting away in a fold out chair.

God is the word for when it all feels just right. Like you'll never be safer or more content than in this moment. You wish you could stretch it out forever.

God is the accumulation of all these flashes of goodness---an unexpected surprise, the smell of her cooking, his distinct laughter, a shooting star that brightens the sky and disappears, your smile--- our minds unable to comprehend an end to it all.

It must go on forever somehow.

And perhaps it does, just not in the way we expect.

Sunlight makes
the leaves
the greenest
they can be!

Love may be the toughest withdrawal
It fertilizes a garden and blooms the wildest—beautiful flowers.
It’s flourishes with enough love given to it,
as it decays in a catastrophic drought.
Nature needs care and its necessities to grow.
We grew a garden raising it up from the seed.
Withdrawals hit when the desire to revive the flowers and the browning of plant is no longer achievable.
No fertilizer.
No water.
Dry Soil.
The wanting to of seeing the flowers bloom again. The wanting of how the garden once looked.
The images of what the garden would have looked like. That is the toughest.

The blinding white shine
of the snow is divine
as I rush through the woods
to meet you by the dogwood

my heart is thundering
my thoughts are stuttering
our time is running out fast
we can't always escape our past

but faster and faster my feet run
as my hands fail to block the sun
in this sea of white, there's a splash of red
"Meet me by the dogwood," you had said

my speed picks up at the sign
as I try to escape my bloodline
then a blow of a horn, I hear them coming
they're here for me, they're going hunting

the biting cold stings my face
I try to keep a steady pace
as I try to reach the red dogwood
the place I spent my childhood

the sound of hooves reach my ears
the sound of shouts bring me to tears
I hear the barks of dogs and hounds
as I run across the snowy grounds

at last, I see you up ahead
surrounded by a sea of red
I jump across over a fallen log
I see that you have heard the dogs

you grab my hands as I arrive
a quick hard kiss cause I'm alive
but as we start to run away
the guards surround us, there to slay

I hold you close, tightly in my arms
as they load up their firearms
with a loud bang, they shot us dead
and the dogwood sees more bloodshed.

It's a birthright, not a dream:
the rising sun is mine to chase.
I grow upwards, each newborn cell rejoicing,
petals outstretched to scale the clouds
and I do not know where I'll go afterwards --
only that it'll sink into my touch
like an animal seeking affection
and I will say THANK GOD
I didn't shrink like a violet at the burn of judging eyes
when my soil-buried roots hadn't yet much to offer
or deem myself good as wilted and cut my growth off at the stem
(the call is not mine to make)
or declare the fruits of my labour would be poisonous
so time, effort, water are wasted acts of love;
how easy it is to give up
so as not to face the prospect of a hungry autumn
or feel my promises break in my clumsy grip.

We owe it to ourselves to wait and grow
for we may never reap what we don't sow.

I am the sunflower that
grows in your garden,
and worships you like the sun