Daisy Boy

I met a coffee-eyed, daisy boy who called me desire. 

His gaze pierced through my soul,

like the beauty of a sunset on the west coast. 

His tongue lapped up the dew drops of my petals in the early morning air. 

My scent released like a newly blossomed dahlia in August’s midst.

He was a book with pages I skimmed through. 

Off his tongue slid the words of a fractured sentence I found deep within him. 

My flower recognized his soil.  

Maybe even longed for its nutrients. 

The warmth of his charming laugh,

he so seldomly allowed to escape his lips,

had caused my petals to perk up at his expression.

The garden within me 

seemed to sprout with seeds I was unaware were ever planted. 

His vines grew to entangle with mine 

each night I fell asleep. 

However,

my garden erupted with plants 

I had no knowledge of.

The uncertainty of my fingers 

caused mild corrosion. 

The honesty of my lips danced around

the truth in my roots. 

My daisy boy never knew the gardener before the visitor. 

He trampled my garden,

uprooted my trees,

cut the vines,

and stained every leaf.

The gardener had hands with thorns in his palms.

Each touch of his would blister my stems,

shredded petal pieces covered the floor.

He spit liquid gold in my mouth,

my tongue seized cold from the iron bite of blood.

He stole my pollen,

convinced the bees it was poison.

Coerced my green thumb to turn blue.

When he finally left,

my garden had no remembrance of its hue.

When my daisy boy stepped into the garden,

the hummingbirds were embarrassed.

My garden’s new visitor was gentle,

asking questions only the butterflies knew.

I was convinced my hands were laced with calloused malice.

When I opened his book,

I turned his pages with silk gloves.

Sunglasses shielded my eyes,

afraid of what was to be seen,

as if his sunshine state, too, would betray me. 

I quietly kept the gate into my garden open,

invited more potential gardeners to the scene.

Carefully checking their backgrounds and resumes,

only to be led back

to my coffee-eyed, daisy boy.

The one who started my bloom. 

He was the gentle visitor with pages I was afraid to touch,

but he went away,

because the line outside the gate of my garden grew. 

But I sit here, 

in the desert of my slow-bloom garden,

soil untouched,

tears watering the ground,

hoping,

praying,

that one day, 

my coffee-eyed, daisy boy might come back around.