takane no hana

flower on a high peak: beautiful to look at but difficult to reach

I’ve wondered how the ubiquity of thorns
becoming a symbol of flawed-yet-remaining-beautiful
came about. And what further curiosity: how distance
is distorting, yet the common approach to acquaintance.

Do you recognise me? (truly, deeply)

Besieged and forced to root into the muck,
grappling for faint pockets of air;
Hanging on threads of pain sewed
into ghosts that haunt you through
lungless dreams in unwilling slumber;

Poor blossom.

Rarely does one venture into this unusual daring,
the intention of understanding the opening of each petal,
one by one; the keenness to study the carvings hollowed in your core.

Oh to be known only by the shell of one’s corolla.

Who cares to familiarise themselves
with the underwater pondscum-ladened process?
They only see a heart that rose into the sun’s purity,
hailed me as a paragon, applauded for extensive cultivation.

They don’t understand how quiet it is up here.