The Sun and Her Flowers Read online

  or do you think we’d just look

  shake in our skin as we pine to

  absorb as much as we can of each other

  cause by this time we’ve probably got

  someone else waiting at home

  we were good together weren’t we

  and is it wrong that i’m asking you these questions

  tell me love

  that you have been

  looking for these answers too

  you call to tell me you miss me

  i turn to face the front door of the house

  waiting for a knock

  days later you call to say you need me

  but still aren’t here

  the dandelions on the lawn

  are rolling their eyes in disappointment

  the grass has declared you yesterday’s news

  what do i care

  if you love me

  or miss me

  or need me

  when you aren’t doing anything about it

  if i’m not the love of your life

  i’ll be the greatest loss instead

  where do we go from here my love

  when it’s over and i’m standing between us

  whose side do i run to

  when every nerve in my body is pulsing for you

  when my mouth waters at the thought

  when you are pulling me in just by standing there

  how do i turn around and choose myself

  day by day i realize

  everything i miss about you

  was never there in the first place

  - the person i fell in love with was a mirage

  they leave

  and act like it never happened

  they come back

  and act like they never left

  - ghosts

  i tried to find it

  but there was no answer

  at the end of the last conversation

  - closure

  you ask

  if we can still be friends

  i explain how a honeybee

  does not dream of kissing

  the mouth of a flower

  and then settle for its leaves

  - i don’t need more friends

  why is it

  that when the story ends

  we begin to feel all of it

  rise

  said the moon

  and the new day came

  the show must go on said the sun

  life does not stop for anybody

  it drags you by the legs

  whether you want to move forward or not

  that is the gift

  life will force you to forget how you long for them

  your skin will shed till there is not

  a single part of you left they’ve touched

  your eyes finally just your eyes

  not the eyes which held them

  you will make it to the end

  of what is only the beginning

  go on

  open the door to the rest of it

  - time

  i notice everything i do not have

  and decide it is beautiful

  i hardened under the last loss. it took something human out of me. i used to be so deeply emotional i’d crumble on demand. but now the water has made its exit. of course i care about the ones around me. i’m just struggling to show it. a wall is getting in the way. i used to dream of being so strong nothing could shake me. now. i am. so strong. that nothing shakes me.

  and all i dream is to soften.

  - numbness

  yesterday

  when i woke up

  the sun fell to the ground and rolled away

  flowers beheaded themselves

  all that’s left alive here is me

  and i barely feel like living

  - depression is a shadow living inside me

  why are you so unkind to me

  my body cries

  cause you don’t look like them

  i tell her

  you are waiting for someone

  who is not coming back

  meaning

  you are living your life

  hoping that someone will realize

  they can’t live theirs without you

  - realizations don’t work like that

  a lot of times

  we are angry at other people

  for not doing what

  we should have done for ourselves

  - responsibility

  why

  did you leave a door

  hanging

  open between my legs

  were you lazy

  did you forget

  or did you purposely leave me unfinished

  - conversations with god

  they did not tell me it would hurt like this

  no one warned me

  about the heartbreak we experience with friends

  where are the albums i thought

  there were no songs sung for it

  i could not find the ballads

  or read the books dedicated to writing the grief

  we fall into when friends leave

  it is the type of heartache that

  does not hit you like a tsunami

  it is a slow cancer

  the kind that does not show up for months

  has no visible signs

  is an ache here

  a headache there

  but manageable

  cancer or tsunami

  it all ends the same

  a friend or a lover

  a loss is a loss is a loss

  - the underrated heartache

  i hear a thousand kind words about me

  and it makes no difference

  yet i hear one insult

  and all confidence shatters

  - focusing on the negative

  home

  it began as a typical thursday from what i recall

  sunlight kissed my eyelids good morning

  i remember it exactly

  climbing out of bed

  making coffee to the sound of children playing outside

  putting music on

  loading the dishwasher

  i remember placing flowers in a vase

  in the middle of the kitchen table

  only when my apartment was spotless

  did i step into the bathtub

  wash yesterday out of my hair

  i decorated myself

  like the walls of my home were decorated

  with frames bookshelves photos

  i hung a necklace around my neck

  hooked earrings in

  applied lipstick like paint

  swept my hair back—just your typical thursday

  we ended up at a get-together with friends

  at the end you asked if i needed a ride home and

  i said yes cause our dads worked at the same company

  and you’d been to my place for dinner many times

  but i should have known

  when you began to confuse

  kind conversation with flirtation

  when you told me to let my hair down

  when instead of driving me home

  toward the bright intersection

  of lights and life—you took a left

  to the road that led nowhere

  i asked where we were going

  you asked if i was afraid

  my voice threw itself over the edge of my throat

  landed at the bottom of my bell
y and hid for months

  all the different parts in me

  turned the lights off

  shut the blinds

  locked the doors

  while i hid at the back of some

  upstairs closet of my mind as

  someone broke the windows—you

  kicked the front door in—you

  took everything

  and then someone took me

  —it was you.

  who dove into me with a fork and a knife

  eyes glinting with starvation

  like you hadn’t eaten in weeks

  i was a hundred and ten pounds of fresh meat

  you skinned and gutted with your fingers

  like you were scraping the inside of a cantaloupe clean

  as i screamed for my mother

  you nailed my wrists to the ground

  turned my breasts into bruised fruit

  this home is empty now

  no gas

  no electricity

  no running water

  the food is rotten

  from head to foot i am layered in dust

  fruit flies. webs. bugs.

  someone call the plumber

  my stomach is backed up—i’ve been vomiting since

  call the electrician

  my eyes won’t light up

  call the cleaners to wash me up and hang me to dry

  when you broke into my home

  it never felt like mine again

  i can’t even let a lover in without getting sick

  i lose sleep after the first date

  lose my appetite

  become more bone and less skin

  forget to breathe

  every night my bedroom becomes a psych ward

  where panic attacks turn men

  into doctors to keep me calm

  every lover who touches me—feels like you

  their fingers—you

  mouths—you

  until they’re not the ones

  on top of me anymore—it’s you

  and i am so tired

  of doing things your way

  —it isn’t working

  i’ve spent years trying to figure out

  how i could have stopped it

  but the sun can’t stop the storm from coming

  the tree can’t stop the ax

  i can’t blame myself for a having a hole

  the size of your manhood in my chest anymore

  it’s too heavy to carry your guilt—i’m setting it down

  i’m tired of decorating this place with your shame

  as if it belongs to me

  it’s too much to walk around with

  what your hands have done

  if it’s not my hands that have done it

  the truth comes to me suddenly—after years of rain

  the truth comes like sunlight

  pouring through an open window

  it takes a long time to get here

  but it all comes full circle

  it takes a broken person to come searching

  for meaning between my legs

  it takes a complete. whole. perfectly designed

  person to survive it

  it takes monsters to steal souls

  and fighters to reclaim them

  this home is what i came into this world with

  was the first home

  will be the last home

  you can’t take it

  there is no space for you

  no welcome mat

  no extra bedrooms

  i’m opening all the windows

  airing it out

  putting flowers in a vase

  in the middle of the kitchen table

  lighting a candle

  loading the dishwasher with all of my thoughts

  until they’re spotless

  scrubbing the countertops

  and then

  i plan to step into the bathtub

  wash yesterday out of my hair

  decorate my body in gold

  put music on

  sit back

  put my feet up

  and enjoy

  this typical thursday afternoon

  when snow falls

  i long for grass

  when grass grows

  i walk all over it

  when leaves change color

  i beg for flowers

  when flowers bloom

  i pick them

  - unappreciative

  tell them i was the

  warmest place you knew

  and you turned me cold

  at home that night

  i filled the bathtub with scorching water

  tossed in spearmint from the garden

  two tablespoons almond oil

  some milk

  and honey

  a pinch of salt

  rose petals from the neighbor’s lawn

  i soaked myself in the mixture

  desperate to wash the dirty off

  the first hour

  i picked pine needles from my hair

  counted them one two three

  lined them up on their backs

  the second hour

  i wept

  a howling escaped me

  who knew girl could become beast

  during the third hour

  i found bits of him on bits of me

  the sweat was not mine

  the white between my legs

  not mine

  the bite marks

  not mine

  the smell

  not mine

  the blood

  mine

  the fourth hour i prayed

  it felt like you threw me

  so far from myself

  i’ve been trying to find my way back ever since

  i reduced my body to aesthetics

  forgot the work it did to keep me alive

  with every beat and breath

  declared it a grand failure for not looking like theirs

  searched everywhere for a miracle

  foolish enough to not realize

  i was already living in one

  the irony of loneliness

  is we all feel it

  at the same time

  - together

  my girlhood was too much hair

  thin limbs coated in velvet

  it was neighborhood tradition

  for the other young girls and i

  to frequent basement salons on a weekly basis

  run by women in a house

  who were my mother’s age

  had my mother’s skin

  but looked nothing like my simple mother

  they had brown skin with

  yellow hair meant for white skin

  streaks like zebras

  slits for eyebrows

  i looked at my own caterpillars with shame

  and dreamt mine would be that thin

  i sit timidly in the makeshift waiting area

  hoping a friend from school would not drop by

  a bollywood music video is playing on a tiny

  television screen in the corner

  someone is getting their legs waxed or hair dyed

  when the auntie calls me in

  i walk into the room

  and make small talk

  she leaves for a moment

  while i undress my lower half

  i slide my pants and underwear off

  lie down on the spa bed and wait

  when she returns she
positions my legs

  like an open butterfly

  soles of feet together

  knees pointing in opposite directions

  first the disinfectant wipe

  then the cold jelly

  how is school and what are you studying she asks

  turns the laser on

  places the head of the machine on my pubic bone

  and just like that it begins

  the hair follicles around

  my clitoris begin burning

  with each zap

  i wince

  shivering with pain

  why do i do this

  why do i punish my body

  for being exactly as it’s meant to be

  i stop myself halfway through the regret

  when i think of him and how

  i’m too embarrassed to show him

  unless it’s clean

  i bite down on my lip

  and ask if we’re almost finished

  - basement aesthetician

  we have been dying

  since we got here

  and forgot to enjoy the view

  - live fully

  you were mine

  and my life was full

  you are no longer mine

  and my life

  is full

  my eyes

  make mirrors out of

  every reflective surface they pass

  searching for something beautiful looking back

  my ears fish for compliments and praise

  but no matter how far they go looking

  nothing is enough for me

  i go to clinics and department stores

  for pretty potions and new techniques

  i’ve tried the lasers

  i’ve tried the facials

  i’ve tried the blades and expensive creams

  for a hopeful minute they fill me

  make me glow from cheek to cheek

  but as soon as i feel beautiful

  their magic disappears suddenly

  where am i supposed to find it

  i am willing to pay any price

  for a beauty that makes heads turn

  every moment day and night

  - a never-ending search

  this place makes me

  the kind of exhausted that has