John Chapman, Charlie Rapeseed, Father Colza (I was Born Charles Dane Flowers)

(April 25, 2018, 5:10 AM)

I have an affiliation with dead flowers

and in the notes app of my phone,

I found a note that says "Next."

That's all.

Just Next.

But it makes sense, I guess. Because

without context it tells me that

I was ready to continue writing,

and ready to continue doing

what I've always done.

So next I write another document

into the Notes app. I write

another poem.

And in it, i explain

that

I have an affiliation

with dead flowers.

And when I'm not writing

about dead flowers, I'm writing

about the dead, or would-be dead,

or will-be dead, or could-be dead,

or I-wish dead, but always

a casket is full and filled

to the very top

(devoid now of emptiness)

with flowers dead or living.

And this affection I have for flowers

is poetic in a way,

because I was born with the name

"Flowers" stapled from a girl unflowered by a man

twice her age.

A seed born of colza,

I was born in Arizona, Phoenix,

stolen from my mother to live

with a mother thrice her age.

And so Flowers’ name was changed,

but Godplans yet remained, and

the affiliation of Flowers led to Bloom.

In the house of blooming buds,

I found solace and place to keep;

I found brother, and sister, and lover,

and friend. I got parents who never

could stay to my end.

I Bloomed healthy, as healthy as

rock-infected Flowers could be.

And so Next I'll continue to speak

thus:

I always hated the color yellow,

I never knew my makers,

yet I love my maker, the one who

made me me.

He made sure I would Bloom

in a house without Flowers. I

never met Flowers, but Flowers

birthed me.

Yes, Colza birthed me.

But I despise the color yellow,

I hate the color rapeseed.

But as rapeseed I flourished,

and I fell for the Bloom. I wish for life

beside flowers, want just the word

Next. No context.

And in the Notes app I'll say,

that my father, the Deflowerer, the

Defiler, made me. He must've

loved yellow, the color

I hate. He must've loved

yellow, the color of his seed. I hate

the Colza Flower, but he

put his dick in it.

And now that I'm here, I've Bloomed,

I breathe no rock-air.

Rapeseed survived, as Colza,

with life. I take breath with no rock,

no crystal, no problems, I guess.

Yet I hold an affiliation for crystals

not sex.

Unlike Flowers bloomed before me,

I step without rock. Away from

burdens of spreading this seed.

Next.

I hold an affiliation for flowers, I guess.

But I wish, most the time, to

see them descend. Like the rose

upon my wall, or

the withered flower that fell

after I stared at the corpse

of my mother unwell - like the petal

that I placed, upon her dead skin,

I find solace in the thoughts

of the I-wish dead. The Flowers

and the bees

that

say "Son you are

Next." With context devoid,

and empty I'll say,

"I have this affiliation with Flowers (deceased), and hate."

And so my father's sins follow me.