OPEN-BRAIN SURGERY

the birth of a sunflower

five years ago (five years times two, five years times three hundred, five years times one thousand— i always forget)

five years ago i

traded my voice for

all the earth's prettiest flowers to

make me soft; i swallowed

six gardenias

and seventy freesias

and inhaled eighty four hundred acacias

and nine million bougainvillea

in one

big

gulp.

i pressed four billion calla lilies

and two hundred thousand hyacinths

and stuck thirty-eight trillion african daisies

to the back of my tongue, until

i could speak to bees

and could see the palms of small children and anxious brides

always, in the back of my mind

i pressed until

i had witnessed the great pain of

my thin green spine being snapped by thick snakeskin boots

until i was plucked naked by melancholic, angry, lovestruck fingertips

until i had known the dirt of death casted over brown caskets so well i, too, could shake left hands with God

until i could break the red chains that shackled

love and lovers

and kept sinners out of sin

and drove teenagers who didn't care

away from the

creaking bridge.

(there is more to being a flower than just reaching for the sun, but reach for her i did, everyday of my life.)

i placed twenty-seven buttercups cloaked in yellow paint

and five thousand forty-nine hellebores

into my ears; i wove marigolds and magnolias through the

rough patches on either side of my head.

i swapped my fingers for petals. i cleaved lavenders over my eyelashes. i became

nothing more than God's decoration, and i was happy, because i was too small to be mad.

now one day, the sun killed herself—maybe because she was tired of shining, or maybe because that was the only other thing she could do. maybe because she was tired of having to hide for me. one morning, she threw herself in all her fiery glory towards the earth, and, when confronted by the ocean, such a very wicked man, burnt out, and died. he took her body into his deep blue mouth like whole fruit. she drowned and screamed with the voice of serpents collecting souls for hell. when the sun died, the world felt it, and died along with her.

the trees bent over, spilled weak sap into gaia, and gave up their last breaths; even the clouds drew together, lost their lives together, burying themselves in the silhouette the sun left behind. rain fell when it remembered to, when it had the strength, plink plonking against skin that had been too scared to ever cherish his watery affection. earth grew cold and wet, then dry and bitter. i was nothing without her—we were all nothing, without the sun. i was split down the middle; the contents of my body separated; i became one with the nothing.