Dear Flower Child

Dear flower child, With eyes of blue and cheeks of red, You shift between the light Of undying truth, As if it lives trapped inside The oceans of your eyes Forever flowing toward me. Although your cheeks will eternally turn away, I hope you find yourself reflected All along the upstate banks- Not only in water but in ripe season, In every tree's fractal leaves Down to the tiniest vein, Tracing it back to some lucidious reason Growth could ever come to be If we're constantly In a state of both branching and breaking… Dearest flower child, With a heart pumping stardust Into your perfect cherry lips Kiss with love tender memories of Who you thought you were back then Not a failure in the sky, For the art of you is too complex To be confined by ideas like A vulture’s definition of success Or every way their projections Have made you feel like less. I hope you find the strength To burn down that old house inside your chest… I hope you howl at the dark moon and find She was ever made to prove to the night Our Sun must rise again. I hope you listen to the birdsongs every daybreak. With reverence, each melodic bid Will also let all of Gaia know It's safe again to raise our restless lids, Breaking through the most human threats That have always corrupted our shaking heads, While I'm a world away, Still and observing, hoping We both hear the way Every bird's verse is weaving The face of god with every weft. But even Beethoven knew, Down to his dying breath, You will only truly hear what you believe. I've always been a flower child. I learned young how to sink into the dirt, Wondering if the best use of my bones Would be to give them back unto the earth. With my paper skin revealing veins of blue, When we first met, I was the stoner girl Playing all the saddest tunes, Never louder than the fiery smile I worked so hard to maintain. Back then I identified with rainy days, So soft I could remain, Because once upon a time I told me, "Stop burdening them with your pain! Be the tiny dancer you were born to be!" And through every crack of thunderous rain My body swayed, preaching to the clouds As if a lightning strike could turn me Into a saint, If only it meant I could forgive the sinners Who took my love away, Dissolving every notion of cause, effect, Or fault under these stars, Praying all the wisdom of a sage Could make me content With our bodies never being ours…

In the end, everything is borrowed, And nothing is here to stay. Even old headboard carvings can only serve As reminders of a time they couldn't preserve, And that's okay. I hope one day you see, flower child, How I carry on by finding myself In the patterns of nature's change, As Her paradox is the only lasting truth I've found on set this global stage. I hope you see me when you notice The birds when it's time to migrate, For, I won't wait and hope forever For you to truly see me Or hear how much it means To my soul when I whisper, "For now, I think I'll stay."