No More Than a Plant With Flowers

By Mita Sajeev

am i just the bloom?

just the colour they want—

not the roots that hold

not the threadwork

not the embroidery

nor the lines etched in green.

i want them to see it—

hold me to the light

trace the patterns

veins and shapes and

the stories inside

but they never do.

they forget the soil

they forget the breaths

i take

not to live—to serve.

we let them live.

still, they take,

still, they leech as they please

they touch, uproot, trample

over me. they never ask, they

take.

the damage stays, and they

do not.

when i first bloomed, i asked, why

am i like this? the others had yet to

i did not want the stares, the flashes

the touches.

i curled, but the wind

pried me open. gently,

cruelly.

they say i am blessed, with

beauty never seen, that it was

worth the bleeding.

they say i should be grateful

i break so

beautifully.

but i never bloomed for them.

i bloomed to

be.

i bloomed to live, to love

not to please.

and one day, my petals

scattered

over the soil.

i do not remember the wind.

plucked, mid-bloom,

their fingers stained with my

sap—

unbothered by the bleeding.

the wind howled, but never for me

the sky, inevitably, folds

around me.

my own roots, a cage

i bend

and bend

but never break free.

the branch—

broken, frayed, rotting

from the inside out.

in my decay, i still feed

the soil with my grief.

i droop and i curve as i turn

less than green.

will they still find me pretty in my

ache?

the old trees say it is part of life

and have grown to be thick-stemmed

to protect from the next.

they say they are saving us from ruins

they created

that we live to provide, to

pardon their evil that stenches

the air, murks

in the water and

bleeds

into the ground.

and to look pretty while doing it.

By Mita Sajeev