“Your flowers, my garden”
by Clover Estrada
Part One.
The scars that trace down my skin,
past my shoulders and down my back
to my arms, to my arms, to my arms –
They leave reflections of you
i see when i lift it up to the light
They are the flames that burn my skin
until it flakes into dust
They are the arms that
wrap around me
on my coldest nights
They are my everything, because
they’re you, they’re you, they’re you.
And every harsh word i will never forget
And every heartbreak you made me feel will resonate deep in my soul
because it’s you, it’s you, it’s you.
Part Two.
And i wish i could rip away
these thorns
embedded deep in my skin
But i could never
brave my forest of scars
and tear apart
every thorn and vine
Because i would lose
the flowers that once grew –
bloomed from my hands to yours –
the way my body
would erupt in petals and glow
The way that my bedroom would
become a garden
and i would
dance, dance, dance.
Unafraid of the buds that nipped at my toes and fingers
Because you told me
you had a garden
too
And while i couldn’t wait
for everyone to see me bloom,
you were afraid of what
it might mean
if they could see
The way my roses intertwined with your carnations
And so
you would cover them
with clothes lined in silk
And i was to follow your lead.
Part Three.
But my roses – too red of color –
kept bursting at the seams,
their petals peeking out
from my shoulders
and blooming up to my neck
And so i
stripped myself
of all my layers
that kept them hidden
But i had
showed my flowers
to someone
who had none.
They ripped and clawed
at my roses, hard enough
to draw b l o o d .
They pulled of
His layers of silk
and revealed the flowers
once held so close to his heart
Part Four.
One by one, the petals began to fall
They hated the way our flowers curled around each other
And soon enough
your red carnations
faded to y e l l o w .
They refused to intertwine with mine
no matter how much
my roses
cried out for them
And then my roses were blue.
Part Five.
Flowers don’t bloom from my skin anymore.
The scars of where they used to be
ache to my very core
I rip and claw
at them sometimes,
hoping maybe if i can find
some thorns that never left
they will lead me back
to the outlines
of the roses on my skin
And i wonder
what our flowers could have bloomed into
if i had never
revealed them.
If i could have held them back
from pouring out of my fingertips
Or maybe,
i shouldn’t have bloomed at all.
maybe my roses should have been
daisies, and maybe your carnations
should have always been yellow.
maybe i should have
ripped the flowers from my skin
when they first grew,
before you could see.
But now i can’t forget
These scars remind me
how your flowers
felt against mine,
something
i don’t think i could
bear to forget.

Hi 🙂 my pronouns are they/he/she and I’m a nonbinary writer. I have been writing for a very long time and have recently started working more on poetry. I hope you all like it!