Huckleberry Cluster

Bruised a dark purple,

Sweet blood clots

On your tongue like a relish

As your molars crush my strength.

Pop! Goes the skin,

And the grind

Of your coarse words disintegrates

What’s left of my ability to cling.

The leaves droop,

Drupe destroyed,

And the red juice oozes:

My fuel to your fire.

SNAP! Down with the branch.

The rest of the cluster

Pulled from their safety

By the greed in your eyes.

The need to destroy,

To consume,

To make mockery of,

My multiple weaknesses.

No longer safe,

Pulled away

From the distance I had

From your stinging bite.

Crushed and blended,

Only to be

Spit on the ground because

I am not worthy in your eyes.

The red juice oozes,

And it clots

Into minuscule droplets

Around my nonexistent grave.

You fill buckets

With my efforts

And force the unwilling juicer

To squeeze out my endocarp.

You leave me bleeding,

Lost and cold,

To coagulate on the concrete,

Giving off an illusion that you are done.

But you return,

Spatula in hand.

Scrape me off and chop me

Into finer bits of corpse.

Cook me in my weakness,

Ever relentless,

Bringing my untimely death

Sooner, but still out of reach.

I die at last, but my tree

Is still growing

Sometimes you may be the bear

But eventually you’ll be the berry.