night garden

There was once a place I thought

Sanctuary

Shouldn’t I have?

But blood escaped my veins

And waited patiently under my skin

In the places where love should have been.

My sanctuary was a night garden.

Flowering vines grew around my body

And curled around my throat like a necklace.

I carefully tended every dark bloom

While I feared their poison.

Was that darkness so comforting after all?

I thought I was more beautiful for my scars.

I thought I was.