horribly beautiful ✔️

my first garden

roses are no longer poetic,
now they're just cliché,

because the most harmful thorns
are never out in the open.

i always liked marigolds
which still remain red, orange, and golden.

they were the color of your hair,
and i talked my father into building a garden

just so i had a piece of you to latch onto.

late at night i'd pick the flowers from the soil,
just to build a bouquet for your heart.

i handed you the dirty earth,
broken sun-kissed petals

and ferns that smelled like daffodils and the stars.

but you,
of course,

you wanted roses.

you rejected my invitation, and i

spent weeks just to kill these flowers for you.

you wanted me to hand you thorns, and i just never wanted to hurt you.

somehow, i still managed to.

you walked me back home from school
one crisp autumn
and you stared at my distinctive garden

stuck in a cycle
of black and white.

you swung open the forest green gate
in need of a paint job

and it clashed against the brick wall.

you grabbed the hydrangeas, the tulips, the sunflowers and the lavender.

you stared at me pityingly,

"this tiny garden is all
you'll ever be able to grow".

your words sunk me into the earth

and caused all the marigolds to wilt,

what once shone as bright as the sun
now
breathes in the dirt.