Poppies

The poppies opened like small red mouths along the ditch beside the road.

No one heard them, but I saw the thick white milk sticky on her hands. 

They drank the rain, the ash, the long shadows of evening, and I thought: perhaps this is how sorrow grows— not as a storm, but as a flower fed by invisible roots.

Addiction came quietly.

Not as a wolf, but as a nurse holding out a cup of sleep, a handful of forgetting, a promise that pain could be folded away like winter clothing.

I swallowed.

The days became rooms without windows. 
My mind became a house where every mirror showed a stranger.

My doctor named the darkness, that I called.

The darkness did not answer, behind my eyes.

It sat beside my bed combing its black hair with fingers made of years, whispering that tomorrow was only another spelling of yesterday.

Outside, the poppies burned.

A field of little wounds opening to the sun, each petal bright enough to resemble hope, fragile enough to become dust.

I stood among them, carrying all the ghosts that illness had gathered, all the empty bottles, all the unfinished prayers.

The wind moved through the flowers.

For a moment they looked like flames.

For a moment they looked like blood.

For a moment they looked like hearts still trying to bloom inspite of everything.

12th gradefree verse

♡Like0

Poem

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.