Work Text:
A gilded cage.
My fault.
My identity.
The brush of expectation,
a snarl of thorns,
flays the self,
a silver shard.
A piercing screech
from every appraising lip
upon my soul.
Wilting, collapsing inside,
a rose starved of loam and light,
petals scorched away,
by the shearing gale of judgement,
stem curved low, cowed in defeat.
Till only the petals that clung
shivered papyrus thin, brittle.
Shattering at the touch.
No vibrant hues of personality
No kaleidoscope adorning it
but the starved, leaden slate
of forgotten rain.
No stain of sun-drenched color,
bleached by a thousand strained smiles.
A rose
that will not bloom again—
the last ghosts of the spectrum
fluttering away,
fine ash from a cinder.
It does not bloom
because I tend
to the others.
Desperate for a drink of light,
of validation,
a monochrome perfection,
a different mask for every face.
The roses of a singular, plastic hue
that ring it
strangle
Every
Last
Ray
from the flower within,
where no droplet of light
has ever been allowed to fall.
One forgets
what is truly within.
The churning, psychedelic petals
a multi-faceted identity
teeming with memories
of a golden dew,
to evaporate once more.
The other roses are caressed
in its place.
And the thorns
of the accepted guise
grow inward.
Sharp,
Cold,
a noose
contracting upon my throat,
blotting out the light.
With the sibilant whispers
of the jury,
A corrosive rasping.
The breath I require
ripped, a cold gasp
from lips not my own.
Waiting for judgement
to be exacted.
The rope necklace,
chafing upon my skin,
is not one I wish to wear,
so I appeal.
I am a living lie,
sustained
in the poison
of every fraudulent,
echoing tone
I breathe.
Every rose I choose,
never the one
within the throng.
I fear the noose
of the judgment;
I fear the silence
of my truth.
For I am pruned,
Cut to slivers.
The trimmings,
the flaws
drift away.
Identity is weakness
and surrenders
To the herd.
Herd mentality.
Blending into the flock,
the throng.
Fearing being unwelcome,
different hues.
I steady myself,
paint a thin veil of interest,
of understanding.
I try to claw
to the rose within,
push through
the thick rose bushes.
But it’s gone,
unsalvageable.
Eerily silent.
Only a
Faint,
Sickly,
Withered
husk remains
of the forgotten bloom.
So I clutch the seeds
of my personalities,
breeding them to be
a desperate graft
a fresh mixture of hues.
The central rose
is buried and reborn,
a punishing,
perpetual cycle
caged by the whims
of those I envelop
in a circle around me.
The cloying thicket of the
parasitic roses cloaks,
in their clinging, burning perfume,
the smothered, starving bud
gasping in gloom.
The poison seeps far too quickly
to the roots of the nascent sprout.
I can only plant the seed,
watch it sprout
in nostalgic bitterness,
watch the vibrant green gleam,
and wait for death,
secluded in shadow,
as I’m born again—
a fresh disguise,
a life stillborn.