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The Bystander Effect

I taste the flowers on the floor,
smashed beneath your boot, and 
choke 
on their heady perfume, 
finding it difficult to inhale
broken petals.

They are a puddle of
crushed velvet,
soft
like the stillness after you
breathe away
the steadiness of your spine
and allow your shoulders to curl 
inward.

You don’t let me touch
the wisteria
still tangled in your hair,
so I watch it weep.
Violet tears drift to the ground,
weightless in their untethered freedom,
and stain our floors.

I drown as I try to 
swallow their gravity
before 
their perfume fades.

Copyright © | Year Posted 2021




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