Lavender and Mint

Lavender was the ephemeral
aroma of letting go, the past
no longer plastered to skin
as the brain stem forgives
and carries on like the draw
of the bowstring releasing.

A pleasing lull in lying down
burdens, a hymn sung in
surges of reflections that
mirrored us moving forward,
our lessons buried in our chests
until the matter was made less.

We were stolen, livelihoods
molded by filthy hands
that could not help but touch us,
their fingerprints, a sharp ink
that remained. A misconception
that our decisions to trust

would lead one into nothingness
as our resolve, appalled and daring
still left us fairing in that abyss.
Fated. Open wounds inching
their stitchings back into one
like the stubbornness in vines,

when we tried like hell to fight
currents that cannot be controlled.
An already paid toll in rebirthing
such worn things, their wings
like havenous canopies to
hold all the world’s epiphanies

but those that are their own.
The existential groan of
stretching the post-paralytic
limbs in our tomes of reason,
a pocket of the mind seizing
as the transformation teases

us into a new sense of being,
our celestial bodies ringing.
Its perfume like lavender,
heady and open, and making room
for the mint conditionings
ready to be consumed.