By Alexandra Varley
There was a hollowness in what I presented and what I offered you.
I tried to fill the hole with what I thought you wanted.
I decorated the hollow with flowers, you never told me your favourite.
You said you didn’t have one but I know that’s not true.
We all have favourites.
You wouldn’t tell me which one you liked best so I gathered them all to show you how much I’d do for you.
How much I’d kill for you as I ripped them from the soil.
You see me and recoil from the garishness of the arrangement.
It’s wild and unappealing and you prefer order.
You take me and bury me in the soil; you don’t like to see the flowers I picked go to waste.
I ferment and rot and melt away but I’m adorned by the flowers I picked.
They grow from me and their roots take place in my open mouth.
I had opened it when I called to you for the last time.
From my mouth, a bluebell emerges and takes its place on the surface.
You return, having forgotten I lie beneath.
Please, I beg, take it.
You pluck the bluebell and the roots of my gums come with it and it’s a horrible pain and I cry out in a morbid kind of ecstasy.
You don’t hear it of course, the pain you caused, you had never intended pain when you plucked her.
You move from me once more and I’m finally at peace.
Although you didn’t want me when I stood before you, I’m happy to serve you as my final act before the soil swallows me.
I only want to serve you.
I’ve laid down beneath you before and now I do again in my final act.
Before the soil takes me from everything.
And I’m happy because it’s final.
