The Undoing

I met you behind the walls of my garden that no one else had seen. Fingertips traipsing along petals of the most delicate clouds of pink. You, waiting up ahead, hidden from view.

We had yet to meet, but somehow I felt you there.

Waiting.

My heart saw you before my eyes did.

I was delicate too,

like you. And unlike you.

The roughness of your jagged heart unearthed all of my fragile places. The ones I’d forgotten, buried, hoping they’d never grow back.

You did the same, didn’t you? I saw your hidden places plainly, behind the steely, stony walls you built.

Hiding there, a little boy, inside a strong and worn man,

at once waiting and fearing being seen.

I rested in your strength, felt safe in the existence of you.

And that was the undoing.

You took from me fistfuls of flowers when you left. Torn from their roots, clenched in white knuckles, buds barely blooming.

It’s spring and the garden’s flowering, but this year, the softest colors are missing behind my walls.

You ran off with them and I wonder if they’re doing okay, taking root somewhere in sunlight?

Remember me when you awake to them blooming again, tracing their beauty along the edges of your hidden heart.