The Gardener

The Gardener

I confessed to you sweet secrets, blossoming in the darkness of my soul, where such blooms were thought never able to grow again. And I told you that you were the seed, the sun, the rain, the flower, and the vine. In secret, this hesitant, shadowed garden grew, spreading sweetly, discreetly, like ivy in a silent wood - beautiful, alive, and green; but also stifling that which it oerspreads. So I came to you, ivy running wild, to show you the sequestered garden that you had planted and nurtured into life. I told you how often I had tried to prune the vines, but that, alas, it continued to grow with vigor more renewed each time. You did not wish to enter or to claim the garden you had planted. But still your sun shone upon it and your rain came down. And the lovely flowers budded, blossomed, bore fruit, and withered on the vine, wasted, untasted, and unwanted, like the thousand other gardens that have lain barren within my soul. And now, I fear, you have forgotten altogether this painfully flourishing garden, now producing thorns. The gates lie open, my soul lies bared, I sit in the garden swing and wait. I’ve long forsaken the hope that you will change your mind, or that time will change your heart. But the garden will not die, and it is just as well. For the twisting vines and unforgiving thorns of this abhorrent garden are better by far than the aching emptiness of barren lands and a barren heart.