I burn the flower in my chest
before it can blossom. see:
I know what it’ll look like,
I know what I’ll be

like the roaming packs of
kids on the street
the ones that think
too much like me
their brains set aflame
the blossoms again killed
for the sake

of making them into what we think is ‘normal’?

I think, “I can't be like them.”
I won't. Not here, or there,
where the pyre is strongest,
our sins laid bare;

so when I see her in the mirror,
the flower’s how I breathe.
at once, reality fissures
for a glimpse of what I could be