The Annual

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Your presence would

terrify me

if it weren’t my desire

to be destroyed.

I am like the flower

who yearns to drop my

petals so that I may

go to seed,

and bloom anew as

an entire meadow

perfuming the sky.

This self is a limited

concept –

It pushes hard against

my inner skin,

saying,

“Let me out!”

The tight-bodied seed

of me cracks open.

The unfurling sprout of me

rises through the soil,

wishing to speak only

in the plural.

This is how I live –

rooted and

reaching for the sun.

And this is why

I choose to die

an annual –

So that there is more

of me to give myself

to you.

© 2012-2014/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Re-Union: Coming Home to Each Other" (a work in progress)

(Feel free to share)