Adolescence

The violence rings in my ears
even now as I look back.
I can still hear the dirt
being sucked from the floor.
I held the vacuum in my hand.
My fantasy was being pulled apart,
nothing but small fibers remained.

The grass beneath my feet was merely
Carpeting. The walls of my room
were simply decorated with trinkets.

In my garden I planted paper flowers;
imagined and full of hope. The seasons
were not kind to petals made of parchment.
Too long had I been a prisoner
of a cloudless sky
where hung the dullest sun.
A garden envisioned behind eyelids.
In the reckoning of my youth, I took
the stem in hand and drew my fingers
over leaf and thorn to the rose’s neck.
I broke it off. The petals had fallen
apart. The rose-head fell to the ground.