Blood Flowers and Hope Seeds – A Poem

Your words are like

flowers. They are

pleasing to the eye,

soft to the touch.

Yet, when I try to hold them,

it is to discover

that needles hide within

the veins of the flowers

and the petals are made

from shards of glass.

I try to hold onto your words

despite the damage they do to me,

try to hold onto what is right,

what is fair, what is just.

They cut at my hands,

causing blood to colour the glass petals

as if I am holding onto roses.

I clutch at the roses,

red with my own blood,

hoping that you will keep your word,

that you will honour

the vowels and syllables of your promise,

yet I know that it is futile,

that if I am to have any peace,

if I am to have any closure,

I have to let the flowers go.

So, after months of holding onto false promises,

my hands slashed to ribbons of flesh

that only I can see,

I take the flowers to the highest point

that I can find.

I have climbed to the top

of a large mountain.

I have been here before.

I look around me at the other things

that I have let go of:

Tarot cards and trinkets,

other words shaped like daggers,

secrets shaped like treasures.

As I stand there on the top of a mountain,

feeling the cool wind of change

caress my face,

I let the flowers go.

As they fly through the air,

the sun hits the glass petals

and the shards of needles held within.

Their reflection is almost blinding

and each promise unkept

becomes a wish instead.

The flowers flutter through the sky,

droplets of blood falling to the ground.

Where the blood falls,

a flower begins to bloom,

as if each droplet of blood

held a seed.

Those seeds grow into hope

for a better future.

the lacerations on my hands

begin to heal and the blood

starts to dry upon my skin.

I can finally head home,

knowing that I am

free.