Among the Weeds

Love is the dandelion

Growing alone on a dry mountaintop of weeds.

Tiny and tender, it droops toward the earth

Like the neck of an elegant giraffe.

Love is the dandelion

Plucked from the earth and blown to bits

Amidst the joyful stumbling of a child

With a wishful heart.

Only the wish is yours

And you are the child.

Love is the dandelion

Whose pieces flutter away in the musty wind,

Carrying with them the tiny seeds that are

The hope you feel,

With his hand in yours,

And his scent on your clothes.

And you run with them,

Not knowing where they will take you,

Only knowing that

You are free

Flying

Leaving the world

Behind.

And when the last seedling has vanished,

Carried over the clouds and out of reach,

When sunny afternoon has become bleak night,

And there’s no hand holding yours

from the driver’s seat.

Without a hoodie to steal,

Or a good morning text,

Not even a phone call

Late into the night—

Memory clings to life.

Sitting on a rocky mountaintop

with sun-warmed skin.

Brilliant purples and splashes of reds,

As the sun sets over the desert

And a new night begins.

Innocent florets chased

With clumsy childlike glee.

Only the wish is gone

And you’re not a child.

Just a dried-up soul among the weeds.