The Little Dandelion

         First came the scent—a rich, tonal draft that caressed the sprout, filling her with life and energy, optimism and excitement. It was a scent she would soon learn to associate with birth; newness, love, anticipation. It was a part of her, feeding her and nursing her to a blossom. Creeping up around the blades of grass, she felt the wind around her spine and the gentle dew drops that night brought her whenever the sun rested. She wanted for nothing; Concentrate on your growth, the soil would whisper, and she did. The rays of sunshine gave her optimism and the hugs of raindrops nourished her, and she sprouted upwards, above the thin grass, the blades cheering her on and pulling her upwards. She turned a gentler shade of green, and her spinal membrane grew stronger and crisper every day. Soon she could feel visitors in the soil, inching around her roots, pausing to comment on what great progress she’d made. And one day, she worked all morning, pushing and pushing until the crown of green that had been her top blossomed into a bright yellow baby sunshine. She smelled the smell of birth, and sprinkled the yellow pollen around while the earth praised her for her achievement. She looked up, and saw blues, whites, browns, purples—and she relayed it all to her roots, telling them about the neighbor’s dog who couldn’t keep out of the trash can and the mother next door who was awake earlier than she was. She loved the bees and their attentions, and sometimes blushed when the grass would tease her about their frequent pollination on her flower. The bees, the earth, the mother, the neighbors’ dog; the world fed and loved her, guarded her as its own, and she couldn’t long for more.
Peeking into the morning sun as she always did, she pulled her leaves apart to reveal her flower. It felt somehow more difficult, fragile, in a way. Good morning! she croaked, and gasped at her own voice. The wind seemed harsher, the dew colder, and, panicked, she began to tremble. Look at  you, the earth said, you’re ready for a change. A change? she wondered, and that’s when she noticed. Her lovely yellow petals had transformed into withering white seed pods, exposed and unprotected, embarrassingly bare. She felt naked but couldn’t hide, afraid but too nervous to understand. Why is this happening? she thought, Why me? She drooped, shielding herself from the wind, and tried to close her leaves with no luck. It hurt, and she hated the way her petals were forced to hold onto her stem. She held on through the day and the night, and in the morning, she felt her petals giving out from exhaustion. She had been holding on all night, and she shook both with physical pain and anger at the situation. She wasn’t ready, she had her friends here, the grass, and the mother and the neighbor, and the bees here adored her. She began to cry, and, defeated, she released her cramping muscles and gave way to the wind. Slowly, she was stripped of her crowning petals, drifting away in the wind, and with them, she let go of her pride, and felt a release of—well, of everything. She breathed in and smelled once more the scent, now without her petals, as strong as it was the first time. Her stem eventually fell, and she lost herself in the earth and among the grass.
She awoke in the air—strange, she thought. When she had given up, she didn’t expect to awake again, let alone in this way, apart from the earth she had never been apart from. The air? she thought, and tried to make sense of the breeze and the sunlight. She hardly noticed her tiny body, propelled by an umbrella of silk, lowering her gently down, down. She felt so big up here; greater than everything, and she saw and understood. She saw how big everything was, how insignificant she might seem, and how the roads and the people blended together to create a landscape more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. In that moment, she knew more than the earth, and her spine, and the grass. There was so much to see and comprehend, and she longed to understand. She felt the familiarity of the earth as she landed, and she smiled as the earth welcomed her in a dark, warm hug. She held her breath and waited for the scent of new birth, this time humbler and wiser, opening herself to another cycle of warmth, newness, pain, and wonder.

you surprised or what

I used to write about you all the time.

Every time, in fact. I wrote about you because I wanted you, I needed you. You made me feel like wings (not chicken) and you always gave me a hug whenever I was upset. Somehow, you knew when you looked in my eyes how I was feeling and every time you smiled at me it stung a little bit. Not the kind of painful, overbearing sting you feel when an insect bites you or you have a rash, but the kind like a papercut--distracting, but small enough that nobody else really cares or notices. You had this way with me that made me feel like it was just you and me, and that was it. You looked at me above the crowd of people with your icy eyes and you saw me. And maybe you did this with everyone, I don't know, but you saw me, and you saw what I saw, and you understood like I did. You and me, we had the same filter.

I wonder why I want to talk to you now. After all this time, after all these years, it's still you. You're still the only one who ever knew what to say, the only one who knew when to tell me I was perfect and when to send me cat videos. You were never demeaning or inconsiderate, you never thought I was less. You knew, and I never understood you. I couldn't be what you needed, and I couldn't be quite enough.

I have so many questions for you, and I want to ask them, but I don't know how. How can I ask you what you did when you felt so alone, because it was just you and your head, even when you were swimming in a sea of people? I have so many more--how did you know when it started? How did you feel it the first time? How often was it? Who did you tell?

What did you do when it was too much? When you couldn't be enough? When you knew what you wanted and how to get it, but somehow couldn't take that first step? When you were paralyzed into thinking that you were less and somehow you existed only below? When you were angry? When you were sad? When you wanted to punch a pillow in but didn't have the strength? What about the insomnia? What happened then?

How did  you deal with the pain? You know, the pain that cuts into your heart and sits there, makes a nest, a nest of glass that threatens to cut more whenever you move. How does it feel to take medication? How does it feel to self-medicate? What did you do when you were done, when you wanted it to be over? Did you ever go too far? What about when you had too many thoughts, too many questions, too many dreams, and not enough hope? What about then?

Somehow I know, if I asked, you would answer, and you would call and tell me it's ok, and you would know what to do. You would drive over and you would hold me in your arms, even though it's been years, and you would kiss the top of my head and fill me with warmth. You would know, and I would know that you knew, and we would be you and me together, two broken records that made a pretty cool collection.

I used to write about you all the time.

it's me

sawing, sawing,
eating away at me,
asking me,
begging me,
toying with my fingers
and my brain
sawing until the tape got thinner
until the break could
finally be on me,
I'm the curse,
it's me,
I tried,
I fell,
down,
down,
do
d
.

I just have to write this down.

I just have to write this down,
I have to,
before my head explodes
because of all the feelings,
feeling,
leaking into my veins on accident
and into my brain
and it gets a little stuck
and suffocates me a little.

I just have to say,
that I know how it is,
I know how you feel,
how we are,
I know,
you'll tell me a hundred times how
stupid I am for thinking otherwise
if I ever try to explain,
I know,
it's just that,
it's only,
I'm not mad,
I'm confused,
and I realized--
you treat me differently when you're with her.
and I can't understand why,
when with anyone else,
I still feel so loved and missed,
and when you're with her,
you push me away,
you have to pretend to be
someone else.
I don't know.