BY MY PEN

While walking down the lane,                                                                             I saw a familiar plant in the garden—                                                                                 the one I used to strip bare,                                                                                        offering you its flowers every day,
never stopping to see what I was taking away.

The thorns pierce deeper than my skin;                                                                       they bleed into the place where sorrow has been.                                                            A reminder, the plant whispers in every part,
of separations' ache, a weight on my heart.                                                                  The crimson flows, reciting its rhyme,
a whispered truth, as old as time;
what I sow is what I reap,
a vow I broke, a wound I keep.

In chasing love’s eternal bloom,                                                                                     I left the plant, dressed in gloom.                                                                              Once vibrant, it weeps, it grieves,                                                                                      a memory lost in shedding leaves.

For now, I water the plant—                                                                                                Some days with cool water,                                                                                         other days with salt of my tears,                                                                       pretending my survival                                                                                                          by returning them what was theirs.

With heavy eyes in the night,                                                                                            I unfold the pages of my diary                                                                                            searching for the last memory of you—                                                                             its petals crumpled, its beauty gone,
just like my heart, and the way you left me too.