hybrid rose or accessory fruit?

There's something staining the edge of my lips

And it isn't strawberry juice because they're not in season just yet.

Notice how my nostrils flare

And dribble secrets in between sniffling and mumbling

There's a secret knotted deep in my esophagus

No, it's not a piece of fleshy sweetness

From the bites that I made too speedily;

I would rather it be that, though.

You should pay attention;

Scary secrets I have woven with red wool to the tightness of each lung;

And these cards I was dealt are signs from tarot readers

That fate is watching.

I feel like a strawberry, stuck on a treadmill

Running from the millipedes that stop me from reaching my full potential.

They burrow underneath my fingertips and eat the red of my veins

Without any chance of becoming a butterfly in the end.

They roll up into spirals like cowards

When the mud and moisture makes my leaves frost over

And hug themselves like no one has ever thought to do

Except with that graceful glance over.

I hate how they crawl and chitter, endlessly

Mocking me with their unnerving trails of hunger.

I cannot shake them off, nor make friends with them

I can only enlarge my lungs, defiant and attention-seeking.

These bugs with a million legs

Represent the aftershower of wintertime;

The long time left until Spring.

I wish I could use that mouldy, furry white-red wool

To knit myself something nice...

For a strawberry, I'd be very creative.

Maybe that'd help me become a spiral?

~