Warnings for mild body horror (but not actual scary horror).
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Planter
It's a little too late to break the
winter-dusted ground
and turn the soil
and plant the seeds you've been given.
There's no room. They won't grow.
Dandelion roots stretch deep into your
heart,
so deep you don't bother trying to tug
them out anymore
because it only makes you bleed.
It's okay – they look nice for a
while.
But they die so fast
and spread so quickly.
When you cough
you breathe out their seeds.
The other weeds have too many names
and you can't remember them all,
not even for the ones that sprout on
your brain.
Especially those names.
You cannot replant until you unplant,
and this means opening yourself enough
to let everything old wither and die.
It means letting the wind ghost over
your bones.
Cleansing yourself means unscrewing
your skull
and exposing the rest of your bones -
to pick out each root and fiber
and to deal with the blood and acrimony
that follows.
You're overgrown but not rotten, and
like bristlecone pines
you're alive even if you look mostly
dead.
The wind will erode you into something
new.
Something strange and anomalous, but
better.
You've started the hard work already -
you're pulling rhizomes from your toes.
Bluebells are weaving out from between
your ribs.
You're making room for new things to
grow.
