Fixing Flowers

I made all these things

For you

So when you’d come home you would know

The light doesn’t shine

Brighter anywhere else.

(I don’t want the flowers to die).

…(And the cycle goes on and on

Day to night

High to low

To needing you more)…

Then we picked

My satin dress.

(I don’t want the flowers to die).

(But homes are for people

Who want to come and rest

And count their breaths).

How do you describe (say) love?

And I suddenly feel grief for all the times I never loved (myself).

(The Minutiae of the shipwrecks and

Fleeting images of the trajectories of trauma).

Tell me

When will you come

And am I worthy of your love

Why is this me?

(The life of an addict).

I tried to play the emotional card

On you and

It backfired in me

Now something is scaring inside me

Wanting love or attention or some

Form of belonging.

Let me shut you up

With another hit

(The next fix).

There is only one solution:

You can dream what ever dream

And have the sensations and illusions

But after the fix

I am still alone;

My thinking doesn’t rest

(After the cardiac arrests).

The rhythms of the heart and the

Electricity of darkness;

The rhythm of life;

The ecstasy of the rush.

How many eviction notices

Is it going to take

For me to look at myself in the mirror

And learn to love myself?

(I want to know what it’s like

When flowers bow to you).

~Maryum Khalid~