Poem: Love of a Pomegranate Heart Can’t Die

My love was like a yellow flower at first.
It bloomed too soon.

Long winters froze the petals.
New growth came too early,
burned the leaves,
killed the branches.

Why did I take you so seriously?

You were a streetlamp,
not even moonlight.

Like birds and insects
I mistook brightness for warmth,
followed the wrong light
in the wrong season.

And now I have the cold to live through.

I can do it.

I learned my lesson
hard as ice.

Cold as being unloved
over and over.

But I lived like a baby without a blanket.

My crying kept me warm.

I survived.

Some lessons take winters.

And I learned mine.

Love doesn't make capacity.

My love sits in me now like seeds.

My pomegranate heart—
tricked into eating them,
down into Hades I go
to live out winter once more.

I was summer for you.

Light and blooming,
fruiting and sweet.

But you burned me
with your cold calculations.

Still—

my roots run too deep to kill.

My roots started in hell
and stretched toward heaven.

I never belonged to either.

I was forged in their between.

So

my bark is thick.

My core is safe.

My pomegranate heart
kept the seeds warm.

I'll be ready
when spring returns.

When spring returns.

When spring returns.

I whisper it
through winter storms,
through freezing nights—

returns
returns
returns

because my love
is a warm pomegranate heart
buried deep in my center.

The cold cannot kill it.

Another lesson learned.