Flower Fruit
Here in the heart of the conduit
Where I put the past behind me
I take my own life in stock
So I can move on with it, lock and key
I keep all of it inside me
I feel all of it moving, shaking
I feel the sides rattling, the bones breaking
And the battle unmaking my best intentions
I avoid other people
And their kind interventions
I hear their voices rise from the trenches
Their cries, butterflies of sound
Leaving men underground forever unfound
While the day quenches itself with blue fire
This is the great adventure
The story they came here for
The fictional selves they built for the war
This is the amusement park of young boys
Tasting the dark meat of the historical beast
The blood and guts of the interminable feast
That eats the night
With an insatiable appetite for quiet
I quell tonight’s riot
And put down the crazy rebels
Who yell curses at my best blessings
Disrupt my confessions
And blow out the candles in the church
But there is no handle
I feel my insides lurch and buck
I feel a total disbelief in luck or fortune
Kneeling where the wax congeals
Over lost hope on the stone
Feeling nothing and everything alone
Calling god’s name
And only hearing my own weakness
I am so lost
I seek only relief
Then it comes
The full force of grief
Shaking the forest, shaking the tree
Shaking the leaf that now falls softly
By letting go
We finally see; we can finally hear
Finally we know we must say yes
When all that is left is a low hum
Of what used to be
The scar of you leaving me
Them leaving us
The color of rust in the dirt
I cannot feel this hurt—
Recursive years now turned to salt
The burn of evaporating tears
Time steering us toward its dry ending—
But I can feel you
My own
The lost one inside me
But never coming home
The boy who lies under earth
I bear witness to you
Alone
I write my name on your imaginary stone
And relight the candle
That flickers in this dark cavern
The wick of a higher power sparkling
You are not lost
You are here with me in this hour
I am the flower of your grave
Where a few tears wet the future
Of our wisdom
Learning to live, to love, to die
To let go
To grow seeds
That flower from this sour fruit
By Julie Flanders
Photo by Jordan Whitt
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LAPRIL IS POETRY MONTH, Day 20
October Process 