Garden of thorns
5/13/26 8:03 pm
A perfect rectangular plot,
spanning nearly an acre,
its borders built from baby-blue planks
etched with soft phrases in looping, hopeful handwriting
the kind of words meant to soothe a trembling animal.
Inside, the world blooms loud.
Greenery swells in every direction,
vivid, bustling, almost holy,
as if Demeter herself had knelt here,
hands deep in the soil, whispering life awake.
Fruits drip with nectar sweet enough to ruin you.
Flowers flash colors stolen from the heavens
pinks, blues, purples, oranges, reds,
every shade that ever dared to exist.
Bees and butterflies circle like worshippers,
desperate to belong to something this gentle.
A path of flat, even stones invites me inward,
each one carved with a word of loving,
as if the garden already knows
I need convincing to stay.
I step into the oasis of color and breath,
birds greeting me with bright, charming song,
the air warm and soothing.
But then,
three steps in,
the chirping halts.
The sun strips itself from the sky.
The sweetness curdles in my throat.
The air turns sour.
The sky bruises dark.
And when I look again, really look,
the garden I trusted bares its claws.
Flowers open with carnivorous intent,
petals peeling back like jaws.
The soil reeks of iron
blood worked into fertilizer.
Roots lurch toward me,
Sensing the shame I thought I hid.
Vines coil tighter when I speak,
hissing like they know my secrets.
The gate slams behind me.
Locks itself.
And suddenly I’m trapped inside the place
I once believed was safe
a garden that now feeds on my regrets,
grows plump on my bloodshed,
thrives on the parts of me I never meant to show.
I am haunted by the realization
that the danger was never outside the fence.
It was always here,
waiting for me to step inside
and call it beautiful.
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