My Garden is in Bloom, An Ode to Queen Charlotte
Queen Charlotte, how does it feel to cultivate one’s own garden?
To tend to your blossoms,
roots evergreen and untrodden.
When my garden was managed,
it was always tender,
I assume your perennials
did not experience cold surrender.
To unravel my braids,
it took many cycles.
Another thirteen
for texture revival.
When blooms were permitted,
it was a topiary gravedom,
crafted by power that insisted
submission was freedom.
It was not my birth right to claim my place,
my status was dirt,
not taking up space.
I was meant to fold,
never to unfold.
Blooms bowing down,
never rising above crown.
Queen Charlotte, was your hair altered to be kempt?
No, you nourished your tresses with water,
not with chemicals or a plated cauter.
Did you twist, thread, and press for their approval?
No, you shaped shrubbery for variety,
not to be subjected to the whims of society.
That was my plight
being ornamental.
Compliments libidinal
in the guise of
nonjudgemental.
My plot was accepted
if it looked orderly,
but show my true natives
they send in the orderlies.
Has your garden ever been invaded Queen Charlotte?
Invasive species
eating
defiling
harming
culling your composites
until
slit
no use for a wilted garden,
f i n a l l y
their full ownership unbridled,
their fingers enter you
wiggling like worms,
forcefully searching
pulling
scraping at your roots,
they need to find something
so fear is affirmed.
Underneath my blooms
lies the end of the world.
They must stay unburned
from my coal-seam fire,
cause once caught in the flames
they’d have to perspire.
After violation, I tried to find meaning.
Winter burn scars us all
what’s a little more searing?
Maybe sweating out toxins
can salve all the burning?
In order to flourish,
we must destroy
what ills us.
Maybe I’ll show them,
hell maybe I’ll grow nuts.
With a pair of shears,
I pruned my florets.
Destroyed myself.
Destroyed my world.
Is this what this is,
Queen Charlotte?
To cultivate one’s own garden.
My new blooms, they grew
authentically beautiful,
carbon felt different
my breaths were powerful.
When I see you living
my past garden sheds petals,
landing softly with joy,
yet painfully decaying
unsettled.
How meaningful you are
the liberated Queen Charlotte,
you represent our beauty,
yet a story I’m denied to incarnate.
But as new growth sprouts,
energy is harnessed.
I tend to my own garden,
till with my own hands,
wield my own growth,
until one day
my roots are aerial,
transcending earthly bondage
just like you Queen Charlotte.
