a romantic's dagger

Dear Kafka,

I too know what it 

Feels like

To have the knife 

Of love churning inside myself,

Making my body

Feel ill at ease.

I allow it to cut

So deep that when

You peer into my disheveled stomach

There are bushels of baby's breath

And doves resting on

Weeping willows.

The air makes the branches 

Sway peacefully 

Back and forth 

Back and forth

Back…

I take myself back

When lily of the of the valley

Reminded me of

How I spent all my life resisting…

The desire 

The desire to communicate something

Incommunicable.

The desire to have the doves blissfully carry

My heart out on

A sheet of silk 

And place it in the hands 

Of my lover

To cradle, as my grandmother once

Did to me as a small child. 

And as my beating heart

Feels the warmth 

Of one's fingertips

It fills with solicitude and benevolence.

My lover places my heart

Inside its garden temple 

Resting it on the insubstantial 

Flowers that bend but not

Break to confine the central part

In its dwelling.

Whilst the heart rests

The babies breath distorts itself 

Covering the fragile treasure.

And the dove’s wings emit in a way

Of guarding.

Their eyes closed and beaks up to the sky

As if they were statues 

Stuck in that position 

For life.

But my beau 

Caresses the white coated birds

Stiffened wings

And yet with such a simple touch

The birds emerge 

And become known to the world.

And for the flowers

They display my heart that

Used to be so eager to obliterate 

The presence, 

In such ways that are pulchritudinous.

It was like seeing a

Field of un-blossomed tulips.

It was scared and vulnerable,

But once it blossomed 

You couldn't see the wound 

The knife had made

Because tulips grew out of it

Filling every nook and cranny of 

the laceration.

Making the once reserved soul

A flourished garden of lingering

Lovesick flowers.