Teen Ink

   A flower, a synthetic pink bloom

Sitting in a vase in my dorm

All about which the winds zoom

Night's runny blackness covers a storm

In my heart.

But the flower remains, mocking me

With its everlasting artificial joy.



A dog barks, a dish smashes

And I don't know if I've heard these things

A centimeter of candlewick lies in ashes

A symbol, too, of my forgotten life;

I've played too long with wooden matches.

And still she floats in front of my face:

That bright, and fake flower.



Billions of times, well 20, I called her

But every time my tongue was as rope:

Bound and unreleasable. Why could I not

Be true, I'll never know, only feel

Just above my stomach, in the pit of my heart.



Beckoning to me was the flower, water

Beading off into the salty soup of tears below.

I took my lesson from the happy nylon

And put a smothering smile on

In hope never to wilt, but in awful knowledge I would never live.