Girl With Spring In Her Belly~

When I was little I ate flowers

 

Roses found themselves on my tongue

petal by petal

chrysanthemums singed my bow lips with pollen

my smile was Cheshire

a belly full of sunshine

 

When I was little I was scolded for eating flowers

Father said I was enchanted mad enough as it was

no need to push the envelope of sanity

while the handmaid bawled I would die

from eating flowers

and it was that dread warning I remembered

when

in a foreign garden

on a lonely spring day

I ate every bloom

in an alien garden

waiting for the rains to drown me

but all I got for my troubles

was a lousy hospital gown

with an open back

a proper scolding

and a herb garden for my windowsill

a deterrent

which worked

until the next spring

when a rose decided to bloom

in a container of chocolate mint

I named her Paradox

bit her wit from the stem

grew wise

a lot more cheeky

and tad more impossible

for which all I got was a lousy t shirt

with ‘Rutgers Mental Health Center’ in blue

above the left breast pocket

 

I used to eat flowers when I was a little girl

now I keep them in a vase next to little blue pills

I never touch

and a glass of water I pour into the vase

each night

 

 

copyright:2010vssmd/amusemusepress

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Author's Note

~medicating idiosyncracies~numbing down a nation~ destroys its capacity for expressive enchantment~ who is to say what is normal and what is abnormal~ how convenient to label everything a behavioural disorder to the point where everyone believes it and everyone is sweetly numb and going with epic lemming flow over the cliffs~

Reviews

[nono]

Very nice, I wrote a poem like this. Only it has to do with ADHD. One time this kid in my class said "I think I have ADHD, and then he said wait. is that the learning disability one?" And I wanted to yell at him for that, i understand not knowing, but i hate it when people just act out, because they want to be sick. ADHD isn't the hardest thing to live with but it isn't the easiest thing either don't get me wrong, but when you get older it turns into something else. A fantastic write, because I can relate taking a pill everyday because no one wants to deal with you bouncing off the walls while your miserable and people can't even understand...Thank you. An amazing write, and it really kept me going reading this!! Keep up the great work!

[No use.]

this one pulsed me deep , inward tears, falling into my eyes instead of out and down my cheeks.

[FireWoman]

You were literally taking in the essence and beauty of each blossom; infusing nature's wonderful gifts with your curiosity and longings. That was one of the few things that you had, that no one could take from you.
I can imagine you in the flower garden looking at the vibrant colored blooms wondering what each tasted like. Your conclusion to the "diagnosis" is enlightened, understanding the essence of humanity is originality.
Just yesterday M gave me a Buttercup and asked if she could taste it, as I told her I did eat them as a little fire spark. =)
Lovely and so very you~

[Intern'l Shultzfeather]

I was enchanted by it Selene. Reverberates in cool directions between the lines.

[Kerry O'Connor]

Rose petals, violets, lavender, nasturtium..all perfectly edible. I read this as a story of a girl who liked to consume the beauty of flowers so that it became a part of her being, and the refusal of others to recognize this as anything other than abnormal. Powerful conclusion.

[My Fair Lady]

This one made me think. Your work usually makes me do some decoding, which is always so enjoyable, but this... in it's simpliciy... I almost worried what I am reading wrong. A good thing. I read and reread. Who is to say what an artist may do with any medium... isnt that the point? Hand a brush and some paint to a group of children.. tell them to paint the exact thing.. and you will still have 20 different pictures.. very different. Creativity is just that. That's what i come away with. As Always- I love Selene.

[C]

That fanciful wayward child squashed by a lifetime of "shoulds" and "can'ts" and poured into a mold that doesn't quite fit but makes everyone else happy......I so love this one kitty.

[luciddreamer]

Oh how I so loved this....made me feel not so alone....thank you :)
Really good write
Peace

[Ed Hart]

and little boys are made out of puppy dog tales...the telling of which has not the beauty and magic that this little girl with grown up eyes showers on the path as she saunters by

[Matthew Kult]

Nothing wrong with being different, sometimes when we walk that path of love and hate, right and wrong, we come to the line of madness, and really whats so wrong with that.

With Love,

Jaidyn

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

You are what you eat ... a flower burst forth, whose poetic petals drift the sky of our minds, whose fragrance sings us into a land of enchanted beauty.

This poem is amazing.

Linda Marie