A long while ago
I received a potato in the mail
Written over with black marker
It read “I love you squishy”
I chuckled, blushed, and potted it next to my bed
It’s the only plant that I can take care of

I adore it,
And water it when I remember,
But I’m not very reliable
The only reason I say
I can take care of this potato
Is because it hides,
Because I don’t know how it’s doing,
So in my head it thrives
While under the soil it might be dying
On second thought
that means I could probably keep a cat too
or maybe a friend

I have a bad habit of planting flowers
That I can’t very well care for
I’ll tuck them under the brim of my hat
Or ring them around people’s collar bones for luck

I tend drink my coffee a touch too quickly
So the next day my singed tongue will remind me
Of the cute barista with the beanie
who was even hotter than my florentine

I have a bite
That’s color coordinated to my bark,
There’s a boy who would delight
in calling it a rose by another name
When I’d plant my lips on his esophagus
Who would wake in the morning
With a clavicle full of orchids
A bouquet of pale pink and mild crimson
And shine, or grin

I used to loathe those carnations,
Thought them morose signs of ownership
Or a juvenile means
of publicizing the fact that you fucked
But the next time I stayed over
he asked that I leave him
a rose garden, to remember me by,
I accidentally left him
Forget-me-nots instead
And never quite watered them enough

He doesn’t regret it
But I still get photographs
of him painting himself
In vein, blue sunflowers
spreading them across his legs
like dandelion winds
In the hopes
that they might dance again

I haven’t talked to my sister in a while
She called me for my birthday,
but I was preoccupied,
Only just turned twenty one
had other things to focus on,
I told her ‘I’ll call you back’
But a couple moons later my phone lit up
And the speaker cracked
In a poor rendition of her voice
said “Hey, where’d you go?”
I said “I don’t quite know,
Aren’t you the one who left?
Isn’t this still the same moment,
The only one that exists?”
Shit, am I out of it?
Am I high?
Are these just the building blocks
Of castles in the sky?”
She asked what I’d been up to
I said not much of anything
What about you?
She said something about the same

I suppose I’m human
Though part wallflower,
Lily livered, with a cereus cerebellum:
A night bloomer
It’s when I do my best work,
when I can spin thoughts in my head
like cotton candy
They’re so sweet in small quantities
But I’m no master of moderation
I pace for an hour at a time
Worrying about borderline everything
while whatever needs doing
waits at the table with the check
I’ll walk in circles or write the same
until the echos stop reverberating
pulses around my brain
Quell the bashing themselves
against my skull
and I can finally sit still,
At which point the clock typically strikes,
to inform me that I’ve void myself of time

I’m not sure if I’m an early or a late bloomer
I’m not sure what season it is
But I know that zenosyne as well as anyone,
Over a drink with a mentor of mine
He said “you’re not ready
For the pace things are about to go”
I said “I know.
I never have been.

I’m always pacing
and it goes too fast already
Just please give me a second to breathe
I’m already hyperventilating
I promise I’ll brick the walls down
But don’t tell me what to do
I’ll gather my rosebuds when I can
When I fucking want to”

I have a bad habit of planting flowers
That I can’t very well care for
A lot of projects and intents
left orphaned, guillotine stems

And I’m sorry for that,

But here I am.

-J