His Garden Path - Syreeta Muir

Adam adores me.
I’m confused when he says it
because I don’t understand logic
and he doesn’t have that yet.
I take off my glasses,
he just kicks them away.
Thank you, I say,
thank you
for telling me.

He’s hot, like summer,
so I open all my buds
grateful for praise,
even the biting kind.
Fascinating,
he says,
you are fascinating.
It rocks me,
setting the birds off.
I can’t help it,
begin unfurling.

Confessing, now,
he would climb my limbs,
if he could.
Examine my knots.
Roots to reasons.
That’s why I love you, he says,
nestled against my rough thighs,
tells me about silky nights with Eve.
No idea why I’m morose
when I’m supposed to be grateful.
However, unlikely as this seems to me,
he’s telling me his secrets.
I take his word for it,
what do I know?

The Gods that have his ear
will see to it that
Adam’s ardour cools.
Lately,
he likes me.
It feels like Fall.
There are pips in my guts
an apple-withering
sure-it-was-just-here
but,
I have to stop being so silly,
because this
is paradise.

He tells me, you are a good tree,
visiting less and less.
I say nothing,
although I am keening because
I already know
that I’m collateral damage.
Full-bellied, serpent coiling my brown limbs.
A double-bluff,
double, double standard.

Knowledge is power,
Adam goes on,
and, yes,
yes,
yes,
I am nodding.
But it is also pain,
it’s also pain,
especially now ivy drapes
the place you once sat
in my shade.
I am just a flower you stopped to smell.

Of course, I only think this and
when they leave the garden
limping up the yellow path,
I don’t watch.
I already know he won’t look back.

Originally published by A Thin Slice of Anxiety 2021

Syreeta Muir is a writer and artist from the UK who, by day, is a practical and competent administrator and, by night, has published work in Anti-Heroin Chic, Poverty House, Sledgehammer Lit, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, The Daily Drunk Mag, Ligeia Magazine, The Blood Pudding, Roi Fainéant Press, Jake, and others. Her photography and art has been featured in voidspace, Barren Magazine, Olney Magazine, The Viridian Door. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and once for Best of the Net for her work in The Disappointed Housewife and Versification. Tweets as @phantomsspleen and Instagrams as @hungryghostpoet.