The metal makeshift flowerpot sat in the middle of the sundrenched floor, and she breathed deeply.
She was hot to the touch, but nobody did, and her metal shoulders were loose, and she smiled (as a flowerpot could).
Linda came in one morning, stepped to block the window, arms full of magnetic reeds.
The metal makeshift flowerpot sighed. Oh.

For afternoons that piled, she sat in heavy dark,
Immobile from the magnet arms and blind from her favorite time of day.
Linda thought she looked so pretty, and the room was as she had imagined.

The metal makeshift flowerpot was glad to help the house’s market value, but she couldn’t hold the magnets any longer
So she held her breath instead
And Linda never knew the difference.

When I was growing up
we had Flowerpot Men
On the television with Little ****.
Their names were  Bill and Ben
who were very strange men indeed.

They were made out of flower pots
and had a hat on their head to match.
This strange gangly flower lived between
It was an odd sight to watch
If you've seen it you'd know what I mean.

But we were glued to the black and white screen
Watching Bill and Ben jig around their pots
Little **** had a squeaky high voice for a plant
It needed the Woodentops dog with the spots
Who used to have legs that were on a slant.

Casey Jones used to put a smile on my face
With his stripy trousers and a very big wave.
Those were the days with Watch With Mother
The happiness and enjoyment it gave
As I sit now watching Celebrity Big Brother.

Just about the size of my thumb
Plant so delicate and dumb
little by little I see my henna plant grow

You don't have tongue to talk
You don't have legs to walk
little by little I see my henna plant grow

The sun makes you sweat
And rain makes you wet
little by little I see my henna plant grow

Up grows your shoot
Down grows your root
little by little I see my henna plant grow

One by one leaves sprout
Making you strong and stout
little by little I see my henna plant grow

In this season of spring
Sparrows around you dance and sing
little by little I see my henna plant grow

At times they pluck your leaves
those cute little thieves
little by little I see my henna plant grow

I give a miserly glance but I don't interfere
It is entirely nature's affair.
little by little I see my henna plant grow

Your tiny existence soothes my eyes
I can hear you when others fail hear your voice
little by little I see my henna plant grow

You are Sharing another plant's flowerpot
Don't worry a new *** soon we will allot
little by little I see my henna plant grow


There you will grow bigger and bigger
Your branches will become stiffer and stiffer
little by little I see my henna plant grow


Within you they will make beautiful nest
Sparrows with enthusiasm and zest
little by little I see my henna plant grow

And when you are big and strong
Maybe then I'll be inspired to write another song.
little by little I see my henna plant grow.
little by little I see my henna plant grow.

My hands fly across the key board as I search around.
Not for anything in particular, just watching people cross in front of my eyesight.
A girl walking in circles in  a blue fleecy vest, talking on the phone.
I remember my father telling me the importance of leaning to type without having to look at the keyboard.
I thought he was stupid.
I thought it was silly.
I ****** at typing.
I still use three fingers only, mainly.
Pinky for the shift key occasionally.
Right ring finger for the return key.
I don’t even use the thumb for the space bar
Like you’re supposed to-
I use my right pointer finger.
I always had to endure the agony of typing with
The Box
Over my fingers in elementary school.
My best friend can recreate fond memories of a 10-year-old me
Squeezing
My eyeballs shut,
Lining up my fingers, my tongue sticking out,
Only to discover
I had typed everything
Wrong
Start over.
But having entered the college age.
I’m happy to be able to
Glance
Around
While I work.
Makes it seem like some automaton is recording my thoughts, which I don’t even have to think About as I
Consider a flowerpot full of yellow flowers…pansies?
So the poet was right.
He was always looking out windows.
Like all his poems would come streaming through them.
Bits of cloudy thoughts captured on paper, because his
Eyes were free to wander.
Silly poet.
Silly little girl.
Asdf
Lkjh
G

Hello there. You seem a bit uneasy. Look around, and let me explain.

This is your funeral. I am your funeral. This is your casket. I am your casket, the black balloons, the flowers placed strategically around the room. One flowerpot per five square feet, like your brother ordered. This is the scientifically proven amount of flowers to keep grieving people at a calm level. These flowers are the happy facade behind which grief lies. These flowers are pretty deceit. I am the crying faces, begging to talk to you one last time. I am every tissue that will be picked up and disposed of by the janitors after the grievers return to their lives.

I am your death. I am your last breath, your last sentence, the cancer you battled with for the last three years of your life. I am every doctor's appointment, every shot that left you bedridden for the next two days. I am every particle of hair you watched go down the drain in the shower. I am every strange look, uncomfortable glance you received. I am all the tears shed after your diagnosis, and every benefit held in your honor. I am every sacrifice your family made to attempt a wall of happiness around your sickness.

I am the birth of your only grandson, the beautiful boy of your only beautiful girl. I am the scary morning spent in the waiting room of the hospital. I am every doubt you and your wife had about your grandson's condition. I am the condition that made him two months premature. I am his three weeks spent in an incubator, and the formula he was fed to stay alive. I am the relief your family felt when your daughter and grandson were released, both completely healthy. I am your grandson's first, second, third, fourth birthdays.

I am your retirement. I am the completion of your life's most well-known activity and purpose. I am the years you now plan on traveling and raising your future grandchildren. I am the mornings you will now spend waking up next to your wife, the woman you've been married to for thirty years now, your best friend. I am the breakfast you will make her in bed and the organizations you plan to join in all your free time. I am your old cat you will sit on your porch and pet. I am the party and the gifts you were given, and the flat, insincere Happy Retirement cards that were obligatorily sent to you by your co-workers. I am this last milestone of your life.

I am your daughter's high school graduation. I am the lip-biting your wife partook in as she walked up and shook hands with the principal. I am her boyfriend, who sat beside you two and joined in the clapping, eyes watering for the girl he loved. I am the marriage they would agree to and abide by for the rest of their lives. I am every late night she was out, every test she was nervous about. I am the teacher who called you complaining about her unorganization. I am the cat she brought home one year, promising to take care of. This cat outlived even you.

I am the loss of your virginity. I am the party you mistakenly went to, and the alcohol you mistakenly drank. I am the girl who mistakenly came into the bathroom and held your hand while you puked. I am the drug she took prior to walking in, and the bed she led you to. I am the feeling you were given in the morning, the feeling of the realization of loss versus gain.

I am the day you met your wife. I am the book section of the retail store you both were perusing. I am your heart beating quickly as she smiled, and your hand sweating in your pocket. I am the beauty you saw in her. I am the money you saved up at your after-school job and the Italian restaurant you took her to for your first date, and I am the city in Italy you took her to for your honeymoon. I am the mistakes you both made and all the hours spent awaiting forgiveness.

I am your childhood. I am your first few friends. I am the bone in your foot, broken by a nasty fall. I am the bridge you were playing on and the cast you wore for a month. I am the day you learned how to whistle and the day you learned how to read. I am every birthday party you have ever been given, and every candle you blew out. I am your first word, your first step.

I am your first breath. I am the decision your mother made to keep you. My how easily all of this could have never been.

I am all the sadness you have ever felt, and I am all the joy. And it has all led up to this day. This funeral, this event catered by a food company and paid for by the government and a savings account made for this day. I am that government you lived under, and that savings account you worked so hard for.

And as of today, I am just a memory. I am simply the memory of your life. I am simply the collection of days and days and years, and times. And now, I am gone.

Friend Rockstar,
            Listen, yield to a robust think-tank,
            earlobes skidding against wheat and grain.
Terrible story, yes, what happened to that little girl.
Sterile teddy nightgowns weeping in the squad car windows.
Teacher – Teacher, do you harken my yodels for grace?
            I’ve never been maternal.
            Put the game on. Abortion.
            That’s what I’m about.
            Grab a bra. Sling some weight.
            That’s what I’m about.
Some housefly wings on a weathered corn cob.
Some downhome, homegrown twang for those fancy, fussy britches.
            Muddy workboots. Sweat-soaked collars.
            That’s what I’m about.
Him done made me read, sir.
What sacraments did we write today?
            I can still remember my first broken bone.
            I can still remember my first broken *****.
                        That could be what this is all about.
Mary, Mary, you can be contrite,
            so knife – so critter – so laze – so stalked.
    Who fertilized your seeds? Who reared your sprouts?
            Cockle shells and silver bells, honey,
            can’t grow up
            to be pretty little maids all in a row.
Sterile teddy nightgowns – green bells in gaseous gardens.
Friend Rockstar, you may have to sleep.
This restless harbor is a shivering anecdote spilled from a belly,
            a vast, deep cavern with love notes written in milk.
Your fried, stern smile was a flaking fingernail adjacent to the crack in the flowerpot.
Some garden, I say.

We love to chase the wind through streaks of blinding bliss,
Tagging the glorious ideals of love, peace, friendship, even
The meaning of life, to weeping willows and pensive pebbles.

We admire the monochrome sky in all its barren blue or pregnant purple;
Hues of burple and plue are dismissed as being tedious, or just confused.
Fear not, photoshop will rectify this pigmented aberration.

We giggle at clouds that resemble kitchen utensils or mystical creatures;
“Hey look a teddy bear in a spacesuit with a flowerpot on his head wielding the Sword of Gryffindor!”
We declare sagely, with the acumen of a legendary bird watcher.

We resurrect grass angels by launching into horizontal jumping-jacks, and,
Just as a disclaimer, no flower was harmed in the process. Not that it matters,
As long as we did not soil our Lacoste and Burberry.

We spin a mixtape out of the torrential downpour, our tracks pitting
The pitter of regularity against the patter of inconstancy, synchronizing
The symphony of splashes to an undercurrent of nostalgia.

We kiss against the bark of an elm, and if a tree is not available in the vicinity,
We throw ourselves down a nearby hill, tumbling into a ball of moist romance,
Panting, as we bask in the studio lighting of the approving sun.

Every still is captured by a Lomo,
Every scene arrested in sepia motion,
Every moment ravished by the chichi Bohemian in us.

Senses endlessly riddled:
the nanosecond-data-bullets
**** through too fast to be absorbed
by roots of thought
for eye of truth
to photosynthesize,
Like the flowerpot forgotten
wilting on a windowsill
outer leaves beneath the sky
fiercely lashed by heavy rain
soil dry as a desert:
Aghast, it feels itself
slowly dying of thirst in the downpour.

A decade of trains that lost track
have just turned up in my esophagus,
they are all bile as I am all hands.

This is why I was never frightened by ghosts
and sea specters:

they have been inside of me
the whole time.  

Sometimes, hot coal would hit my cuticles,
I could see the steam.
I could feel something like wheels
spinning a web on my nail-beds;
something sat in me like I were a flowerpot.

All that remained were the sticks
of my skin, blood bubbling from below.

But they have been there
the whole time.
I have been a ship in a bottle,
I have been a conductor without knowing.

Fever outlined my spine with its fingers
and I felt I was being kicked by
a fetus.

I was a hallway for phantoms
that believed they still have their limbs
and if not, quills
or a fish with gills and a fin
or locomotive. Mechanical movement still.

How could I not realize
they were inside of me the whole time,

soaking up the nutrition from my throat
shifting the razor while I shave?
Thousands of train-ghosts
crawled from me by an engine of *****.

Not one knows where they are.

teardrop stone
arrowhead mother
copper-red veins flecked with crystalline dust
[iridescent]
[irrelevant]
you are just some fat piece of flagstone-
broke off corner of some stone paver-
seated in an empty flowerpot beside 30+lbs. of rusted chain in an old screwtop pretzel jar

Note to stranger:

Don't let her long eyelashes fool you
Stemming off from eyelids filled with promise
Pupils composed of green and brown paint
Mixed and made permanent by the look on her face when you ask her what love means to her

Because to her
Love is an antique promise
Tic Tac Toed into her shoulder blades
Another lost game

Lonely is made apparent by the reveal of her hipbones
Sticking out from the belt loops on the waistband of her dreams
Her clothes become looser

She is welcomed by friends to parties that she refuses to go to
Because even in a room of people
The only emotion she is capable of feeling
REALLY feeling
Is lonely

And you may argue that lonely is not an emotion
But a state of being
But when she truly feels it
Lonely becomes both

Discolored tulips growing for a flowerpot of unfertilized dirt
Masked by a smile that could fool anyone
Even her own father
Sometimes even herself

Mascara stained floor tile
Quick change scenes
Equivalent to her multiple personalities
Sad happy sad happy
Sad...

She is capable of being both sad and happy
She is introverted AND extroverted
She is 5 million different people
Sometimes wishing she could narrow herself down to just one
She is ME

I am fake
A plastic flowerpot that leaks
A **** puddle on the floor
Cement barriers are behind my eyes
It would be so easy to choke the life from you
I would really dig my nails in
And take your flesh with me
Behind my lost dreams
Among the vibrating crimson nightmares
I will see your face forever
on each blank canvas i will see your face
In black and red paint
In blue and yellow paint
The ache inside me is revealed
i turn away from the blank canvas
I am caught up in webs
spun in the shadows of my mind
Momentarily these words will be finished
and our lives will continue

Sometimes I think that my depression has me in a chokehold so
I pull off its mask only to find that it's been rage with no place to go

Where do you put rage that sneaks up on you?

Do you put it in a flowerpot only to wilt the calla lilies that it touches?
Do you put it in a collar and leash only for it to lunge at the first stranger to approach too quickly?
Do you hold it between your teeth so that it slowly dissolves on your own tongue until every strawberry tastes like grape leaves?

Maybe I'll just file it away
   on the top shelf where I keep my winter coats in Texas.
Then, years from now, when I pack up to move to the mountains, it will topple over and smother me.
Maybe then I'll finally leave it behind
   in the pile of things too broken to donate to Goodwill.

i ruptured into a
million flickering stars
too long ago, breaking from
touch-induced trauma and the
poisonous aspects of
bleach. my thoughts drip
from the ink veins
of pens; ******* it,
i cannot allow myself
the privilege of
saying, “this

is every secret i
ever hid.” i am not
soft or pretty or
loving; i am small
and hurt and reticent
and guilty and abandoned. i
long to be the

little girl i was six years ago
before he shredded my
insides, sprouted roses
in my blood, wrapped his ******
thorns around my throat. there is
no recognition of that beloved
innocence. the girl in the mirror
never looks back at me: she is knotted
hair, decaying paper skin,
scarlet gashes, pink
scar tissue. i am not

sweet or darling. i am
ravaged. van gogh swallowed
yellow paint to create some
feigned happiness, and i understand
that in the nastiest way. i spent my time
trying  to shelter the black and blue
daisies on my hips with makeup,
camouflaging razorblades in fields
of sunflowers, pouring every
unhealthy bit of my starved
stomach into the beautiful
lilies in the flowerpot in the
bathroom. i have unearthed
that home is not the
safest place to be.

i was infected and diagnosed with
the disease of loneliness
by age eight. this wound
has burdened me yet the
ticking time tomb nestled in
the crooks of my devastated
personality will soon detonate; they
told me i was sick, and i think
i finally believe that.

Sunbeams dancing off the ends of leaves and
dropping to laugh along the rutted path,
running up my legs and tickling my tum,
sunbeams are fun.

We all think so except for grumpy caterpillar who only ever complains about headaches and hemorrhoids and pains in the chest.
His Mum's a butterfly and doesn't know why he's like it, blames his Father, the red admiral, 'he was always at sea', so she says.

'I'll be a sunbeam for you', we sang and the woods rang with titters and the twitter of birds,
'just storybook words', Mother said, as she tucked us up in a flowerpot bed and the day will be bright again tomorrow and so we borrowed some sleep from the moonbeams that keep the sunbeams 'til morning comes courting.

Looking at you, I've missed my train of thought.
Forever blue, earth in a flowerpot.

In your eyes, a delicate pink hue danced,
Like a flower's tender blush, I had never seen,
Yet, I dared to kiss you, craving to understand,
To feel the enchantment that your lips could bring.

As time passed, you blossomed beyond that flowerpot,
Rooting yourself deep within the garden of my heart,
I nourished you with words of admiration and praise,
Expressing the immeasurable value you held, my art.

Your memory, a seed, lay dormant in my mind,
Buried in the depths of darkness, patiently awaiting,
Until the moment it would sprout and bloom,
Unveiling the love that within me was awakening.

I wasn't prepared to fall so deeply, so intensely,
A solitary florist, learning to tend to his own soul,
But with you, my love, I discovered a newfound purpose,
A garden of emotions, where our love would forever grow.

You get to a point where, swimming and spinning you land in the nearest-p-universe, and you’re laughing your chair back, inhaling comforting scents of flaky pastries in some outdoor café on another continent where it’s summer and the sun is making love to the water. Your toes are polished red and your cigarette head buzzes like the bees harmless-floating above the flowerpot adjacent, your conversation is lovely and the sky is endless. Urging your conscious mind upward, you lift yourself out of the quaint wrought-iron patio chair and evaporate into one million whizzing molecules, finally weightless.

I stare at the empty side of my bed,
and wonder about the things
I would tell you
if you were laying right
Next to me

(1) when I was little
a flowerpot fell from the balcony
and i stared at the beautiful mess
all the pieces had made
until I became sad
it wasn't until I got much older
that I started feeling sad
for the balcony too

(2) I remember in November
Knuckles turning purple as the leafs turned orange
My hand, a bruised, gnarled, yellow and indigo mess
How did this amazingly unfortunate injury happen?
I was punishing the walls
That saw my loss
But stayed quiet

(3) the world is too bright,
so I filter it into sepia tones gentler to the mind's eye and swim to where the water meets the clouds.
I am drowning,
but not from the ocean's relentless caresses,
but from the world's relentless stresses:
beauty that is measured and calculated,
saturated with standards that burn like the sun and are as intangible as its rays,
a paradise built on sand as quick as it is to judge.

I swim to where
the water meets the clouds.
where the water
is still water,
and I am still me.

the sky is dark and cloudless
as i walk through the streets
alone.
like a baby by itself
left in its crib.
like a flowerpot
with no flower.
there's something missing.
maybe
its that the night is starless
or that the street lights are all out.
maybe its my mind
because who else would walk around
alone
this late at night?

we were too fast to be absorbed
by roots of thought
for eye of truth
to photosynthesize,
like the flowerpot forgotten⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀

A heart to heart story of lovers never ends
Magic of taste and flavor sets sweet trends
A tree full of fruits takes pride and bends
I want to take you in arms my heart intends

Let my blood cross all barriers to be just one
Let us be my sweetheart real life companion
In sheer darkness of life you are light beacon
Let us in whispering to share secrets hidden

My beloved I aspire to be your *****'s knot
Let me select you just out of all beautiful slot
My beloved you are not ordinary but hotshot
For my eyes you are my beloved like flowerpot

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2017 Golden Glow

Can you show me how to live
Because I tried but failed many times
My bones still fractured and skin still punctured
I can't seem to find the right stitches to get it back together
So I stay in bed and rest
In that comfort I find a hole
It's as big as a nikkel but it gets bigger over time
Now I can't help but wonder when it's big enough to fall
I can feel it lurking under my back
I find the strength to look around me
My thoughts are on my nightstand like a succulent plant
It's not necessarily a plant to feed, but I keep forgetting I already gave them what they needed
Now they are drowning in their flowerpot
I can see them dripping away as the time goes by
I can feel myself disappearing

I knock on the door, he says go away
I plead and I beg, let me in, I say
Please let me in
He pushes me astray, telling me to find another home to invade
Stepping aside I reveal one large flowerpot filled to the brim with soil and three blooming flowers
May I at least enrich your garden with my three budding fruits
Reaching out, the homeowner grabs hold of the cylindrical vessel
One by one he looks each flower up and down, examining their brightly captivating colors
Their yellow-like nature shines like gold in the sun
The depth of their cocoa centers contrasting beautifully with those same honey dyed petals.
Looking over into his garden, I see only white flowers.
Though equally beautiful, the unanimous collection lacked the distinction that my prodigies could provide
Awaiting his response, my head falls limply in reverence
Yet I remain confident
A smile gracing my lips.
I was excited to see
Excited to witness the opportunity my blossoms would be given to thrive in a nurturing environment
Yet as my head rose and my eyes lifted,
All reassurance left my face,
My happiness transformed into terror
Before me stood a man seeming ten feet taller and baring the face of a fiend
A wicked smile replaced his pondering expression,
A snicker belt out from his nostrils.
Looking into my eyes, the homeowner spit his words into my face
The saliva causing a sickening chill to run throughout my body
In my heart, his words will forever stay
My God-given soul permanently hardened to stone  
No. They are the wrong color.
A shiver sparking a queasiness in my belly
As are you.

It was here a while ago,
beating in my chest and making me glow
so then, where did it go?

I looked everywhere I could possibly think of,
under the flowerpot, in the cupboards and even behind my Mona Lisa (oh what a beautiful laugh!).

But I guess that's what happens when charming dreams you weave
and wear your heart upon your sleeve.