It’s raining petals outside.
They get stuck between the teeth
and foul the tongue when their taste is new—
chew, spit, scrape the flavour: Not for me.
Rejection tastes like soil: metallic
and real, realer than memories.
Flowers cover that taste. Wouldn’t that mean
that flowers trivialize suffering? Embrace the soil.
🏵
It’s raining petals outside.
They muck the pavement, brown the puddles
drench the world in mulch-piles, mud-soft—
but they are pink, sweet like snow—
and make the air smell wet and crisp, like petrichor
and hot like burnt cinnamon, cloves. They bloom
inside the mind when eaten, when smelled, and flourish best
when taken without salt.
🏵
It’s raining petals outside. Bury yourself in soil.
Too late: one falls onto the tongue. Spit it out, quickly—
no joy for these tastebuds. But the tongue will not obey—
it rebels, tastes the sweet, the cloying faewyld you once were.
You used to devour flowers. Remember—
you gorged them daily, greedy before the young sun
and clutched them, green and yellow, smearing grubby fingers.
You knew this world. Who taught you that flowers were to be destroyed?
🏵
It’s raining petals outside. Return to the idea slowly, in time—
I’m learning how to eat flowers.
Learning how — because anyone can just eat the flowers,
but to remember that flowers are good, that they are to be cherished—
that flowers don’t hurt
that flowers feel better than the dirt
that takes time to learn. Put to practice.
Open your mouth—
🏵
and chew.
Inspired by today where I was quite happy and not self-loathing and recognized that feeling happy or content genuinely feels better and does not invalidate prior suffering, which is often my excuse when I am wallowing in pain or depression.