Poppy

She has clover lips

A heart compressed there

Smooth and tempting.

They pout and smile at his every whim.

He is in control of these lips

But what if she talked

If she talked

She won't, she trusts him.

He is moving her feet forward.

He is letting her breathe.

He is beating her heart.

His prison is a magic trick

Pure illusion of a tiny backwards house

A cavern of old mugs and sheriff’s hats

Where everything is swept under the rug.

He is a bad apple in essence

A perfect model citizen on his skin side

But inside he is black and rotting

He has left a dying mark on this hole he live in

Making it stink of uselessness and things outdated.

But she is so bursting with new vibrancy

She is a bud in spring

She brings oxygen into his airless chamber

Of overgrown filth.

He watches her blossom

A Thumbelina sprout

Into a petite poppy.

And a wanting spreads into his bones

Curling at the corners of his mind

Like a cat sleeping in the sun.

It wakes and stretches its claws

He is addicted.

She is malleable

As all children are

A flower moved by wind and earth.

Loving hands shape children into blooms

And he makes sure one of those hands are his.

He gives her everything

Like a lover doting a new conquest

But it is all manipulation

Stringing her along a leash of wrong love.

She loves him like children do

But he is not satisfied.

He takes another step.

He follows the steps laid down.

Once upon a time

He had locked away the very people he was now becoming.

He didn’t see himself as criminal

He wasn’t because they loved each other.

That’s what he fooled himself into believing.

The seeds of the poppy are sliced

For the latex they hold

Where opium lays waiting

And that’s what he does.

To get the high he craves

He performs his surgery

She gives and gives

And he takes even more than that.

He is satisfied finally.

And while he stands in the sun

Of his false happiness

On the edge of cliff

That the girl is learning to back away from.

The machinery in her head has jumpstarted

Wired and sucking in information

At the rate of her heartbeat.

She opens her eyes

And sees her childhood being stripped away.

She has slits for eyes to see

Underneath the constant care and gifts.

She finally sees what he is:

A rotten apple.

The gardener has harvested and uprooted

The flower that she was

Turned her into something ugly

And frightening.

She is repelled by him

But the habit of loving her family

Makes her quiet and unresponsive.

She hides in shower curtains

Locked next to the stained toilet.

He seeks her

Thinking it is her children’s game.

He lights her up

Smoking her until she is ash.

So the bile swells in her stomach

And rises into her throat every visit.

There is so much pressure

Pressing down from her head

And up from her toes

Until her middle is filthy and corrupt.

And when she explodes

All that comes out is words.

Everything changes in that instant.

Now there are so many stories to tell

So many hands to hold

Hands that want nothing from her

Hands that want her as a child

Only a child.

With every step she takes

Pulling herself out of the wrong hands

The wrong love

She grows stronger

Reborn into something intense and genuine.

He never imagines he will never see her again

The day she stands before strangers

As his hands are chained together

And she recounts a story he has never heard.

He sees her eyes

So dark and old.

Her voice

So different than he has ever heard.

How could she betray their love?

He is left to his mind

For that is the only place that he finds solace

From unbelievable accusations

Questioning Looks

And raised brows

He folds himself so far inside

He has lost the trail of breadcrumbs out.

Though time heals the flower

And she becomes sharper in wit and clarity

She is forever haunted.

She skin is tough

Her thoughts darker than a child’s should be.

He is always above her shoulder

Instead of a devil and angel

Mocking and persuading.

And so she stands on the ledge he left her

Always on the edge

Swaying in the wind.

-J.W.