You walked in with three sunflowers,

A ring, and a smile that held the sun on a leash.

Your worn jeans and Abercrombie jacket

that I bought you screamed

a warning sign of difference,

but your pleading blue-green eyes saw a future.

My ringed green saw no future,

a marriage built on three sunflowers,

built on the lie that a cluster of diamonds could make you different,

dictate what I wear, who I see- no trust on this leash.

Only to slice silent cries with aching screams,

until you’d drape onto that marshmallow jacket.

It looked burnt, the way the black jacket

covered every inch and promised the warmth of our future.

We were better in the winter, our screams

met by wilting brown-yellow sunflowers,

while I held your heart on a leash

and learned to squeeze out each indifference.

The promise placed on my finger told me you’d be different,

clinging to your arm, I deflated the jacket.

You gave it to me, your dog on a leash,

I always felt sick for the future.

I saw Europe and sunflowers,

but found lonely matches of screams.

If I could just scream

loud enough, would you hear me differently?

Would you finally fear losing your precious sunflower?

Maybe you’d let me keep the jacket,

maybe we could see a future,

maybe you’d let me off my leash.

I didn’t mind being leashed

To you, until it drove everyone else away, to scream

a blue-black lonely future.

I dreamed of a bright world, different

where you hold my arm, and let me wear a marshmallow jacket,

where you only give me sunflowers.

A future as bright as that yellow sunflower,

the only leash- a constricting marshmallow jacket,

and a different world that doesn’t recognize my scream.