Flowers

The words take root in my chest and the flowers grow from my heart I look at you and want to speak, but the flowers die in my throat. The roots strangle my heart, and drink from my blood. With every little beat and pulse, the flowers stretch a little more. They spread to my lungs until every breath carries scent of the words that want to tear themselves free of my heart. The flowers creep up my bones to my brain and press the small petals to my thoughts with gentle caresses soft as the spring breeze. As the days go by the flowers gradually wilt and are reborn in their corpses, still ever seeking a place where they might escape. My organs are filled with the decaying petals, yet I still live with them weighing me down to the earth. I imagine that once they cut me open to deduce why I have passed, the flowers will spring free and the doctor will weep. When they call you in to identify me, the vines will be peeking beneath the sheet, and when you see the flowers I have grown you will smile. When you softly touch the petals the velvet of them will not surprise you. You will touch my skin and somehow know the flowers resemble myself. I imagine that you will carry just one imperfect flower home and plant it with the words I slowly wrote out in life. And when you give it time, when the flower grows enough, it will dawn on you that you have the same one in your chest.