Thorns |
Instead of growing taller or developing breasts, I started growing stems. Fragments of shoots bristling along the pores of my skin. I am turning into a rosebush. I can tell by the way people look at me with longing but do not reach to touch. I am sprouting and my new branches begin sharpening themselves whenever I walk through the wind. The boy next door passes me every day on the way to school. I begin to grow the pedals of my first blossoms. He notices quickly, and looks away just like everyone else. I am tired of being untouchable. I stand in the rain, naked, to absorb and cleanse. I am turning into a rosebush. I will shred the hand that reaches to pluck me. I am tired of being beautiful when people hover closer to smell my flora, their face so near and I so rooted. I stiffen with age. I grow lean. The first snow falls and I am the only thing blaringly gorgeous, the only thing red like a murder, the only thing that stings worse than the cold. I have turned into a rosebush. I am learning to love the danger that I am.
|
Samuel J Fox is a bisexual poet and essayist living in North Carolina. He is a poetry editor at (b)OINK and poetry editor at Orson's Review. He appears in Grimoire Magazine, The Occulum, and Moonchild Magazine; he is forthcoming in Former Cactus, Dirty Paws Poetry, and Mannequin Haus. Find him on Twitter (@samueljfox).
|