abscission

After being beaten down by one of the harshest Michigan winters yet, early hints of spring are finally beginning to materialize. The gray is getting a little less gray and people are looking less like their outerwear, and more like themselves. No wonder spring is associated with rebirth and newness; as nature comes back to life, so do we. After spending some well-deserved time under the warmth of the sun, I feel the Ann Arbor start to thaw. Be soft with my scribblings.

the sun came out today and so did you.

coaxed out by warmth and distant birdsong, a small flower started growing from my collarbone.

i fall in love too fast

i fall in love too hard

i want it all at once,

like wanting to climb the nonexistent branches of an infantile sprout.

it’s the promise that hurts the most.

in the teachings of mother nature,

good things come to those who wait so,

i’ll bide my time, i won’t rush,

but i will recognize

when the plumule becomes a bud, becomes a stem, becomes leaves, becomes a flower.

please don’t wilt, stay as you are.

i am the hug of humid morning air.

i am the gentle fingertips of a penetrable ray.

i am the wisps of a stretching cloud.

i am the golden dust particles that hang inches above the grass at dusk.

i am the lain blanket on our sticky sweet night.

one flower became two strewn across my chest.

***

the sun left today and so did you.

so i left

the door of my house open

and stood in the middle of the street

away from the streetlights

so that i may look upon the stars how they were intended to be seen.

the only stars that are visible are ones that are dying.

i’m embarrassed to ask so much,

to have this audacity,

to demand answers from a thing slipping from existence.

is this the only choice?

the breeze just barely disrupted the abandoned sneakers on the power lines, but somehow

i can’t hear myself breathe anymore.

my eyes betrayed me as I continued to stare at heaven’s fated departures for my missing virtue.

i failed to notice that my flower petals had fallen, the petals drifted into the wind,

and left me too.