I Have Not Prayed For A While. But Tonight I Do.

I have not prayed for a while. But tonight I do.

Pray for repentance and Lives lost

For I am a murderer

A killer

A taker of life.

Today I plucked a bouquet of wild flowers. And claimed the slaughter was owed to a love of beautiful things and an appreciation of the simplistic intricacies of mother nature. Told myself I was leaving enough for the bumble bees and,

That this abundance

would not exist

if it did not want to be

Taken

From

And taken home. And have its withering corpse pressed flat and brittle and forgotten into the pages of a notebook. Plastered across photographs as though it's only job is to look pretty and not

to Bloom

and to live

And is that not so man of me

To be selfish enough to think that this beautiful and constantly perseveringly little miracle was meant for me and mine. And when she did not go peacefully, Refusing to yield to my hand and relinquish her place in the soil and attachment to her roots. I pulled her apart.

Snapped her in pieces.

Left the parts deemed unworthy severed in the dirt.

And carried her away. Broke a nail or 2 in the process and did nothing but chuckle at the fight she put up. And the resilience instilled in her.

As though that could stop me from taking what I wanted.

When I get home, I strip her, of her leaves. And cut her into palatable, Manageable pieces. Just the pretty parts. Lay her along a wire and tape her down alongside other already fading bodies not unlike her own.

Call it a Crown.

Where the statement on my head with pride without questioning what there is to be proud of. Celebrate the taming. Bask in the temporary beauty. Know that this thing is easily discardable when it finally disintegrates. Crush every bug and beetle and fly that crawls out of her wilting petals. Say:

it is not my fault.

They had the entire walk home to leave. They had an entire life to make somewhere else their home. They have invaded my home. I will protect it. I will kill you. And it will not be my fault.

Forget the fact that I displaced you. Forget the fact that I uprooted you. Forget the fact that you did nothing but exist where you always have. After all, Your flower made the same Mistake.

To exist.

On my path.

In the sunlight.

Practically begging to be seen.

To be Held.

To be plucked.

And I pray, Thinking of the corpses littering my living Room floor. Rotting away so far from home. Eternally trapped in the house of the one that slew them in their prime. Petals curling in on themselves. Wonder if I dare be the hypocrite who asks for mercy, When she awarded None. Pray if I crack open a window, Their souls may yet slip away and wander home.

But

even then,

Perhaps,

They ought to stay.

Perhaps,

I deserve the haunting.

Poetic justice.

You deserve better.

If you let me love you…

If you let me love you

I would love you like how the sun leaves lipstick stains on your skin

Like how the moon trails your shadow and laughter

Like how fireflies emerge from your fallen tear drops

And the wind dances until it makes you blush pink

I would love you like how the rain washes the day clean off your skin so you can breathe again

I would love you the way nature intended you to be loved

The way you have forgotten you deserved to be loved

If you let me love you

Stopped glancing away

And dancing around conversations

And walking past me

If you looked at me

Let me look at you

Let me love you

I would tell you of how when you smile I can trace constellations in the spaces between your teeth

That when you open your eyes I can drown in galaxies that exist there

Pinpoint a pollen sized planet and make home there

Cease existing everytime you blink for a momentary eternity

I will trace the fractured lines of your heart on your soft palms and callused fingertips

If you let me love you

I will love you the right way

Which is to say that if you let me love you

I will let you love me too

Because sometimes the only reason you let someone in

Is so they will do the same for you