​There’s no magic anymore. The rain washed it all away. It died with the dog. Ran off around the holidays. There’s no laughter with friends. I’ve forgotten how. I wouldn’t know how to set the table or where I placed the vase. Or how music works. I wouldn’t know who drinks tequila or if they just want tea. 
There’s no magic anymore. Nothing kept up my sleeve. My wand is broken. I lost the candles for the cake. My intuition knew this was bound to happen. It was just a matter of time. The lack of a clock on the wall doesn’t make a difference nor the fact that I hate yellow. 
There’s no magic anymore. I knew it when I forgot to close the gate. Or collect my chickens eggs. When the dogs stopped coming when I called or cable dropped my favorite channel. I need old movies to see me through. No one is more enchanting than Jimmy Stewart. 
There’s no magic anymore. Coffee tastes like coffee. My ex roommate is a whore. Swings make me want to throw up. The sun sets without a flash. My mother can’t see through walls. Perspiration smells are sour. The bottles are all empty. 
There’s no magic anymore. I can see in the mirror in the dark. I taste dinner all through the night. My cars engine is frozen cold. There are no presents under the tree.  Flowers are dead on the grave. The airplane can’t take off.
​There’s no magic anymore. My vision is blurry. There’s a ringing in my ears. Prayers were never answered. Negative ions don’t lift my spirit. Candles burn out. The wind sings out of tune. Everybody’s sick. Schools out forever. 
There’s no magic anymore. I can’t find the map. States have rearranged themselves. Polar bears search for rainbows. There’s ice cream in my hair. There’s no Santa Claus after all. The highest skyscrapers did fall. Someone is moving the bunny rabbit around. I have the exact wrong screwdriver. No one smiles when they talk about me. 
There’s no magic anymore. 

​
I’m not doing flowery today, I can’t.
Unless it’s one with thorns. Unless it’s one with distorted, mottled blossoms, with veins popping and centers bulging. Unless those thorny, ugly blossoms are on twisted branches, suffocating the sun for anything that grows below. Unless those branches, with their wide reach, grow from a trunk leaking bloody sap. Unless the gnarled roots of that twisted, greedy, repulsive tree are burrowed into black bodies, those bodies becoming the soil, becoming the nourishment, becoming the very foundation the tree needs in order to stand.

I’m not doing flowery today.

Unless it’s referring to the toxic pollen of putrid blooms. Spreading on airwaves, fertilizing with acid rain. Sinking into the cores of waiting blossoms, receptors bent to follow their sun.

I’m not doing flowery today.

But maybe a fungus or a vine. One that creeps above the surface, or just below, only seen if you know where to look. One that demolishes with ravenous hunger, anything of goodness along the way. One that strangles and covers and climbs. One that wriggles into cracks and crevices, tendrils securing its grip, only to stretch further. A poisonous fungus, a poisonous vine, leaving corrosive residue behind. Tainted tongues and rabid minds the proof of its existence.

I’m not doing flowery today, unless it’s the kind that needs to be chopped down, ripped out, dug up and burned at the root.

I’m not doing flowery today.