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!

[Mrs.Sophrosyne]

This is really awesome. I'm not sure what it is about this piece, but i really liked it. It flowed well while telling an amusing yet deceptively real story. Who would've ever though that eating flowers would rebel against the stereotypical labels and strike out against the boundaries erected by an ignorant society. Who are they to tell us that flowers are not for eating?

normal is for losers.

[Robin]

labels labels labels how I detest thee ~ how society loves to clip the wings of creativity , and rinse the taste of freedom from our mouths ~

[Aven]

haha, aren't we all students of life? and if we havn't eaten a flower, how can we honestly say that we done our homework? this is a favorite. :)

[JelliFyshKissUs]

Amen. It seems everyone has A.D.D. or is bipolar or hypersensitive. Every child is not the same. And they should not be stuffed with dream killers to blend them in with the rest of the world. Elegant stabs of the psyche.