Her eyes were filled with love
But she wasn't looking at me
Even though it physically hurt
She was happy

Every time she looked at him
My throat burned and ached
I watched her as i was violently coughing up the beautiful red pedals
Knowing i was going to die

Because i knew she would never look at me
The way she looked at him
And for some reason not loving her
Hurt more then the pedals themselves

Her beauty couldn’t compare to the throned flowers
Rapidly blooming in my throat
I would happily die knowing
That i died loving her

I was going to hold on
Despite the feeling of being set on fire
And knowing exactly how this was going to turn out
But i wanted to die with the little dignity i had left

My vision got blurry
blood dripped from my lip
My throat began to close
And With one last breath
The flowers consumed my smiling dead body

That beautiful hanahaki

I'm choking, flower petals fall into my hands. Blood puddled up, followed by more couphing. My hands stain crimson as I attempt to catch the petals and blood. Red dribbles down my chin and flowers break through the skin on my neck. Vines and flowers continue to grow in my lungs. Causing my disease to only worsen. Is this one sided love. Have you lost feelings for me.. Have I gone mad. My thoughts are again interrupted as a hack up more flowers. My chest is hollow.

Your body
All angles and edges in place of curves
Your neck
Cinnamon, turmeric and salt
Your skin
Wheat-dark like pages of a well-worn book

Your atlas back
Arched like a cello’s waist
Your elegant fingers
Graze the ivory shell of my ear
Your hollow collarbone
Perched like a sycamore branch

Crawling its way up
My pelvis
My sternum
My throat
Until finally hanahaki springs forth
From my welcoming lips.

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

petals.
petals everywhere.
flower petals.
they flood my stomach, overfill into my throat, and spill out of my mouth.
i wretch.
i heave.
i grip the skin on my legs for purchase.
the petals just don't stop.

petals.
petals everywhere.
in the morning, when i first wake up, petals.
in the evening, when i'm settling in and feeling lonely, petals.
at night, when i'm alone in the dark with my thoughts, petals.
more wretching and heaving.
the petals just won't stop.

petals.
petals everywhere.
when i see your face, petals fly out of my mouth.
out of my mouth and onto the cold, unforgiving concrete.
my knees buckle.
you whisper in a soft voice that could lull me into a blissful slumber.
"are you alright?"
i wretch.
i heave.
why won't these petals go away?

petals.
petals everywhere.
my stomach has become a garden.
has become your garden.
your smile blooms inside of me.
your voice blossoms like a morning glory.
i could get the surgery.
i could get it and forget about you.
about the wretching.
about the heaving.
the petals could go away.

slicing.
dicing.
dissecting.

petals.
petals nowhere.
petals no longer litter the ground i walk.
the bed i sleep in.
the clothes that itch my dry skin.
the sight of your face is now a reminder to me.
a reminder that you are a person.
a person who never appreciated gardening in the first place.
no more wretching.
no more heaving.
no more petals.

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.

my heart
beating for you
and blossoms
reaching up like hands from my pulsing heart
growing towards the sun,
(woven in the clouded sky)
flowers blooming upwards from my throat
clusters of amaryllis.
forget me nots
(please don’t forget me when I disappear)
florets and what not
dripping,
spilling
out of my mouth held wide open
as beautiful as fire,
stinging with blood,
sprouting from the cracks in between my teeth
how they flourish as I decay
reaching up until
my heart no longer
beats for you

.
flowers bloom in our heart
i bloom eternal tulips
but in You, only periwinkles can grow

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

the flowers bloomed under my chest cavity;
overtaking my ribs,
suffocating my lungs,
growing a garden right from
the bottom of my heart.

the roots dug inside my organs;
piercing my flesh,
crawling up my throat,
squeezing out my air and gripping
the words down under.

theres a garden of heartbreak that
bloomed just for you.
stealing my pulses,
stopping my heartbeats,
waiting for something you cant give;
your love.

petals
spilling from my lips
speckles of blood
adorning them
growing
in my lungs
from one-sided love

At first, it just seemed like normal.

The painful, yet blissful

constricting, yet rising

shrinking, yet swelling

tightening in my throat, in my chest.

That same ball of unspoken words and fumbled flirts that appears there whenever I think of you.

And I was looking at you

(you,

you,

you)

when the feeling came.

The raw, squeezing bitterness, tying my throat into knots - like usual, yet more. It was like I couldn’t breathe - beyond, of course, how you always take my breath away.

And then it happened. A single, solitary blossom escaped, expelled from my chest in a cough.

And then the tightness swelled again, squeezing my throat once more until another cough, another flower - blue with silver-streaked petals - came;

and another,

and another.

My hands were a fairy’s bouquet, a florist’s wildest dream.

The light began to fade in me as the flowers ceased to come;
I couldn’t breathe, air stuck half-way, as they clumped one by one.

My lungs were filled with beauty;
I fell, unnoticed, to the ground.
I was closer to you than I could ever hope to deserve;

Flowers spilling out, I closed my eyes and heart and throat, my conscience sound.

1.....
there is a rotten smell
permeating this particular instance
of public transit
and i wonder if it is me

is this the aftermath of
what i never coughed up for you
in the midst of my unrequited love?

it wouldn’t be flowers for you, though
i think clovers would have been more fitting
like the one that you gave me
hand-crafted pendant on a leather cord

and i really have to be more careful
with my heart, don’t i?
all these pretty things i can write about love
can’t hold a candle to the real, reciprocated thing

and i realize now it was unfair of me
to ask of you something you could not give
but i love you just the same
albeit it with less heartache and tears

2.
that rot must be coming from me
and the roses
pink like the sunset and downy soft
i planted between my ribs for you

did you see that garden?
how i tried to give you everything i had
the way i allowed you to take and take
and asked for little in return?

but what is a garden
when it is trapped behind towering walls
with no one to see the way all those flowers shine,
and what a lonely thing that is

i choked myself on roses for you
and that wasn’t enough
was i not enough?
hard not to feel like it, if you must know

but i have better things to do
than make my throat bleed
with all these words and love
with nowhere to go

i think it’s time that i plant
some flowers for myself
no more roses or clovers
but maybe dandelions this time