The Twelfth Flower

We were held together by daisy chains
I was always the one making it.
Splitting the stem with my thumbnail,
threading the next one through the wound-
that's what it is, if you look close.
Not a loop.
A wound wearing another wound
to look like decoration.

You just wore the finished thing.
Never learned the part where my hands
kept bleeding a little, kept working
so it would look effortless
by the time it reached your wrist.
Nobody tells you that's the split -
some people know how to make the chain,
some people only know how to wear it.
and mistake the wearing for love.

I counted once.
It takes eleven flowers
to go around a wrist,
and every single time,
I gave you the twelfth -
the one I should've kept for myself,
the one that would've made something
just for me, for once.
It took me years to notice
you never asked where I found them,
never noticed the field was actually me...

emptying myself out, one stem at a time,
so there'd be something soft enough
to hold us.
soft enough that you'd never have to know
how hard I was working
to be gentle.
When it broke you said
I guess it wasn't built to last.
I didn't say:
It was never the daisies.

It was always my hands-
and I think the cruelest part
isn't that they got tired.
It's that they still remember how,
that somewhere in me
a thumbnail still knows
exactly where to split a stem,
still reaches for flowers
that aren't even there anymore,
still tries to make something out of nothing
for a wrist
that stopped wearing me
a long time ago.