INFLORESCENCE

WATCH ME GROW

YOU CALL as if it had not finished,

as if the connection had not been cut,

as if i had not plummeted.

catch up— you recite with a smile and a quirk and your heart in your palm as if you were gifting it to me,

again.

and i replied with a courtesy, a mannerism i fabricate in hopes to not make the wound deeper. i lie between the whites of my teeth that sit pleasantly behind the gloss of sinful lips— the lips i dripped venom when i told you

i love you.
( i was lying of course)

and i suppose you thought it true, when you sent me bouquets of blossoming boredom in the form of calls and messages, in early night rest when i wished with golden chains choking me that you'd only stay with me longer.

but you didn't.

and even so, i never pushed, i never guilted, and instead i sent bouquets of my own sunflowers (because i find roses cheesy) to my doorstep and read the little note i left drenched in my perfume and a red-lip stain all consumed in blissful folded parchment that read:

love yourself.
(i wrote truth this time)

and when i cut the connection, and slipped from the cliff and planted my bouquets sunflower seeds into the earths domain to watch flourish— you still sit as if you're waiting for ME to call, as if you are still my gardener and i your flower pot of wilted weeds of a
       l
           i
               a
                   r.

i wish for you to give up, leave me be and leave me to grow for your downpour of suffocation is drowning me up into thick mud.

i'd like to be truthful for once, and not title myself cruel but you make it hard when i see your name on the horizon and i can never quite cultivate my courage into the pretty yellow petals that i once obtained.

i suppose lying to you keeps it all at equilibrium, i suppose lying to you has let YOU

f l o u r i s h.

but someone once said i'd grow perpetually, with a setting sun and a rising moon and i'd let frost collect and melt and the soils to freeze and warm—
for darling, love, my gardener of untruth,

you're perennial

and i, annual—

so watch me grow.