February 14th, 2020
Streets littered with fresh roses; restaurants pregnant with sales
Shop windows bleeding red, the air polluted with sounds
Abuzz with slurred sweet nothings from lovers’ lips
Her…
Willing to trade her body like a merchant
Turning from virgin to open door
Just so he could dress her in his last name
Him…
Willing to barter in his promise littered tongue
Hoping in her hips and curves he will find a home
And be adorned with a title,
Her man
June 25th, 2020
14th February a distant memory
Streets swept clean, roses wilted, withered
On a lover’s lonely grave, her body manipulated into mud
Just the way God intended
His heart battered and aching as though it were used for target practice
His mouth once a temple for her lips,
Now resident to all manner of golden liquids
Traces of her DNA all erased from his tongue
His shadow cowers at this shell of a man and dares not follow him
August 9th, 2020
A new bouquet. Roses again. A new grave.
He questions the fluidity of nature.
Robbed of all manner of women on whose breasts he suckled,
Although he hadn’t gotten round to it yet
He wanted to leave a suicide note, his body
November 13th, 2020
Silence…
February 14th, 2021
Silence
September 10th, 2021
A familiar sight,
Roses freshly picked, the sweet fragrance of flowers in bloom.
A sky painted blue and yet a man no longer as blue
He beams as he strides, a bag in hand
Heavy as though it were all the pieces of himself that he had picked
For with spring, a soul once starving was now well fed
For with spring, a mind polluted now well
By Michelle Thanya