In Bloom

Graphic by Halima Jibril

I met you bright purple. A bright tulip,

The gold chain in that necklace of mine you loved.

You grow on me like a creeper on a wall

Beautiful, but deteriorating. You said, "Focus on the beautiful."

It’s crazy, I promised you when we were still little weeds

For you I’d never fall apart

Why wasn't I good enough to put you back together?

“I may have failed, but I have loved you from the start”

You were upset, eyes furious, hands bloody

I was bruised. I was fifteen.

You told me to trust you, and your hands deserved 

Me. I was not so sure. 

And then you looked at me, and I think I realized

No, your hands did not deserve me.

I am sorry my body was not enough for you

But you took my soul in the process.

“You're the only one who does this right,” you said.

I never touched a band-aid again after that.

The roses you gave me died from the poison you fed them

You said they would live. They did not. And now?

I cannot kiss someone without my body telling me to run,

I cannot love someone without un-loving myself.

How do I keep blooming? The grass and the beach 

Were so long ago, yet I cannot forget.

My wildfire/wildflower / my temporary tattoo

I will never sit in a glass room again.

You will bloom in me forever, and I cannot scrub you off.

I hate it.

He told me I should have seen this coming. I got mad.

Like a weed, you grew inside me / places you didn't belong

In brushing of hands and hands-on waist /

And waist on my garden bench. How was I to know?

I have never forgotten the story

Of Hamlet and Ophelia / she died with flowers in her hair.

And you know, funny enough, your hands on my skin

Sure felt a lot like drowning.

So it’s time to move on, but how can I?

You ingrained it in me / forced it in me / that you were 

The only part of me worthy of being loved.

Today I looked at my scars and wanted to vomit.

We promised that we would never grow up

We did not win that war. 

But I suppose that just as I cannot scrub out 

all the soil you left me under my fingernails,

Just as I always forget to water my father's plants:

Someone always takes care of them, and

For some godforsaken reason

the lilies and orchids in my garden still live

In color, in blue skies, in the little red ladybirds

That crawl next to them.

Despite all you’ve done and all you’ve forgotten to do

Someone is taking care of me.

One day, although it does not feel like anytime soon,

I will feel full. I will love, and I will touch, and

I will laugh from the crinkles in my eyes, and

I will bloom again. And I will not need you.

By Lauren Lee

(she/her)

Instagram: @laurenpohlee

Edited by Halima Jibril (@h.alimaa) and Zafirah Kesington (@zafirahh.kesington)