Primroses

I lay primroses on your grave.

Your favourite flower.

The ones that reminded you of home

And your mother

And the free-roaming hills

And valleys

Where they flowered in the spring.

Where you told me how lovely it was

To watch them bloom

And colour the world

Once blacken with decay.

How you picked them for love:

Your mother, your grandmother,

Your crushes and lovers.

Because the delicate beauty of each pedal

Paled to the beauty of the women in your life.

Swooned; I fell into your arms.

I lay primroses on your grave

And know,

You would rather watch them

Than a woman who pleaded for you to stop.

You would rather place your hands

With such inane care

Across the stems and walls

Of your gleeful memories

And beat your sadness and frustration

Across my bruised skin.

…

I never knew

Alcohol could let things grow.

I knew it as a poison

But it grew a monster in you.

Although an adult

Still, I was scared of monsters.

Now, I can thank the Lord

That He told you to travel home

On those country roads

After the monster took over

And thank Him

For the tree that took its breath away.

Thereafter, it could never tell me

It only struggled

Because I didn’t know how to love.

…

So,

I lay primroses on your grave

So I may return and see

What you cared for so dearly

Decayed into the earth.

Then I can know

When men come to love me

And gaze upon my scars

I can tell them,

“it’s nothing but dirt.”

I can tell myself,

That love is not a flower

Or a field

Or a memory,

It lasts longer than seasons

It grows without boundaries

And it was not me that didn’t know how to love,

It was you.