Paper Petals

I knew I still had them somewhere

Shoved away in some drawer or other,

Those tiny petals you gifted me

Of paper pink and flimsy made,

Pierced together with an old metal pin

Straight through the in-between.

I, being without surplus of sunlight,

Chose to give to you what

Those petals required; but blinded,

You retracted yourself and buried

Beneath barren soil what those petals could

Bloom, and so they withered and died.

I searched and searched for them the other day

Until I found them there rooted and tobacco-stained,

Torn apart by that old metal pin, a token of

A love you could not find within to give.

With a tenderness not natural to me, I wiped them

Clean before I let them go into the wind.