Hanahaki

                                                            Inspired by, 

and made for Arthur Williams. 

The tulips grow outside my window.
Their bright-coloured petals sway away
When the gentle breeze blows through.
Peaceful and quiet, and calm like her.
Moving in silence on this warm spring afternoon.

The tulips don't cry, however.
They grow, and live and then die in the cold,
They dry like pages from old books
I never thought I would read.

Being a flower is a privilege,
Which not everybody gets to feel.

The tulips bloom still,
Even more so with her burning,
Ice-melting touch
Which made room
For even more of them to grow.

Her warm caress pierces my skin,
Right through the heart of me;
Incomparable and unstoppable,
It's silent, tender and new.

New like a pure first kiss after many,
New like what lacks in racy, frantic nights,
New like what others always crave
And I never thought I'd need.
Not even when someone's eyes
Flooded with infatuation
Turn around to find my face
With a expression that doesn't match
The slowness and bliss of the morning after.

Here I am,
Alone.
Nothing else but the tulips
And me, I
Hear her heart beat in mine.
Abruptly, it stops.
Kindly and without a rush.
I now exist for her.

What do these tulips know of love?
They certainly know more, compared to me.
Their petals open, screaming her name,
Self-aware of how undeserving one can be of her,
Falling on me like a curse.
Like focusing on the first letter of each verse
In a particularly cryptic stanza.

The warm wind blew through the tulips
And everything slowed down.
Nothing made sense as the world turned on its head;
The opposite to what I've always known,
The wind between the tulips
Sounds now like a song of doom.

The tulips are now everywhere.
They've passed the window, and grow on my desk,
In the sink,
On the floor,
In my hands,
In my lungs,
In my heart.
In my voice and my tears,
In my thoughts and in between her hair,
I see them and they see me.
They haunt me.

They became a plague I grew to love,
And I should know it's love what brought them here.
Everyone saw me, but now I am watched.
I was listened to, but never heard,
Browsed on like a boring summary,
Not knowing what it was like to want and need
And never receive.

If I knew that kissing in the dark
Was all it took
I would've blown all my candles out
Just to see her light them back up.

She's probably watching,
With both hands on her hips;
Ice met with fire and thought it could win.
She had captured my soul in her lips
And turned it into something it should never have been.

The tulips now know I know,
And still keep growing strong.
Let me cry on the floor and see if they drown.
Their colors are all I can see now;

Let me enjoy or hate my luck.
Who would've ever thought
That tulips could damage someone so?
Let me replace my oxygen for them
So anyone can follow the trail.