literature

Dear Poppy

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StrawberryRunner's avatar
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Literature Text

Dear Poppy,

It's the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, and I watch you dash through the field among crimson, bell shaped flowers. The sun is only now beginning to set, yet already it's well past your bedtime. But this evening is so perfect, and your face is so full of happiness that I am loath to end it. Your six year old form seems so small to me, yet so vibrant. You scamper through the fields, the pounding of your footsteps disturbing flurries of dragonflies, leaving only giggles and shrill little shrieks in your wake, as your father chases you in the guise of some monster. I can't help but burst into laughter as he finally catches you, gathering you in his arms and pretending to gobble you up. I could gobble you up, every last inch of you. The retreating sun bounces off your hair, lending it a golden hue and illuminating your deep blue eyes. Others say that your face is too plain, your hair is too fine, even that you are too small for your age. But I ignore them, let them talk. To me you are perfect.

I never thought that it would end like this. No mother should outlive her child. My Poppy. In all my naivety I named you after something I thought to be beautiful, a taste of summer on my father's farm, innocent and beyond reproach. But your namesake was your destruction. Their toxic opiates enticing you, their thrall too powerful for you to resist. They caught you as easily as a spider catches a fly, entangling you in a web of pain and pleasure. Morphing you into a different girl, a girl who wasn't my Poppy anymore. And when you could no longer abide them, they disposed of you in cold blood. A cruel irony by anyone's standards

I can recall no memory as vividly as the day you died. I remember every insignificant detail. The smell of burnt toast in the kitchen when I answered the call. The taste of bile in the back of my throat. The echoes of my shoes in a long narrow corridor. The metallic sound of the door opening, and a drawer sliding out. The rustle of plastic and the cloying stench of antiseptic masking a more subtle one of death. Your fathers choking sobs. And your face. You lay there, my beautiful little girl, with snow white skin and onyx lips, dark hair flared out behind you. It wasn't you, I told myself. But your fathers' hysterics confirmed it. I stood there, still as a statue. My face a blank mask, even as I crumbled inside. I felt sick as words flew around me, clamouring for my attention, the white clad morticians eager to explain how you died. But I wasn't blind and though I tried desperately not to look at them, the track marks that marred your slender arms were unavoidable.

Six months later, on another summer solstice I kneel at your graveside, my daily vigil. Many think me a cold hearted wretch, because I never cried at your funeral. And haven't since. The truth is I was numb. Your father stood beside me, puffy eyed and shoulders sagging, while I was a pillar of frozen stone. An immaculate creature of the palest ivory draped in the deepest ebony. They say that I didn't cry, couldn't, wouldn't. The harpies twitter incessantly amongst themselves, incapable of comprehending that sometimes anguish cuts so deep that even tears cannot heal the gaping wound that it leaves in its wake. The soul shatters only to be replaced by ice, every illusion of love or innocence destroyed along with it. They look into my steely eyes, and judge me. Ignorant to the truth. But do they see me every day as I keep your little patch of earth? Clipping the grass and tending the poppies that your father planted here. Seventeen, one for every year. If I had cared for you as well as I care for these poppies, would it have ended differently? I was your Mother, and I failed you. Maybe that's why I never cried. Perhaps a deep part of my subconscious fears that tears would reveal the true monster within, the one which feeds on my guilt, my torment. Tears...with such pure emotion spilling down my face, would I melt? Would I crumble? Would I finally feel the agony I so desperately crave, so desperately deserve?

The wind caresses my face as I stare at those bright flowers. The source of your addiction, of our pain. The longer I gaze at them, the more I wonder why. Is it all some sick jape? A cruel jest at the hands of a heartless God? As I kneel there my hate for them intensifies, becoming nigh unbearable. He thought they were pretty, but nothing on this earth could repulse me more. These hellish, scarlet bells of fire. Their inaudible tolling bringing naught but pain as they dance in the summer air. I can't take it anymore. The sharp gardening shears whistle through the air, slicing into soft flesh, red bursting onto my hand. Again and again I slash until my arms grow weak, the shears falling and burying themselves in the ground with a dull thud. I fall back on my haunches, staring up at the clouds rolling across the blue sky, as the fragments of a hundred petals rain down upon me, spinning as they fall lazily through the air. The sun catches their silken, wrinkled surfaces and my eyes find shades of red I did not know existed. Nothing remains of the blood red poppies but devastated stalks. But the poppies will return again next year, to taunt and mock me once more with their garish tones. But you're never coming back. And that I cannot handle.  A wave of madness washes over me, my movements becoming frenzied. My hands delve into the soil, my nails scraping at the ground, tearing the slim roots from the warm earth. One after the other I gouge them out, the plants anchors emerging in an explosion of soil. I fling them onto the ground and they tumble around my feet. Finally every last one is exposed, but still I am not satiated. I perch one on the border of your grave and begin to pound at its coarse bulb with my bare fist, smashing it to a pulp, the tiny black seeds exploding from the capsules and skittering across the pathway and embedding themselves in my hand. Little, dark capsules from hell, so much pain and suffering contained beneath their smooth surfaces. I keep pounding, bulb after bulb. Soon my hand begins to bleed, but I cannot feel any pain, no matter how much I might want to. I have gone beyond reason, beyond sanity. Until suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn, flinging myself at him, my bloodied fist slamming into his chest. But your father just brings me closer, enveloping me in his arms and pulling me tight to him. All the rage leaves me, my violent anger dissipates and I collapse into his arms. And he just holds me.

And I cry.

Big fat tears stream down my face, coming from the core of my very being. Huge choking sobs wrack my entire body as I bury my head in his chest. And I don't melt, I just cry.
"She's gone, my baby's dead!" I wail.
"I know he whispers, hugging me fiercely, the words catching in his throat, emerging strangled and wrought with the purest of emotions. "I know, but it wasn't your fault."

And he cried.

We weep together until our tears run dry. We kneel there for what feels like an eternity, exhausted by the sheer force of our grief. We don't speak, hear, feel or even think. We stay there, relishing in the existence of each other, revelling in the realisation that neither of us has to face this alone. When I next look up, the stars wink down on us. Another summer solstice is over. Soon the nights will become long, and dark. As dark for everyone else as they have been for me for so long now. But I can see that I'm not alone now. The sun gives way to stars, and as the stars illuminate the sky, hope blossoms. Maybe now, I can finally move on. You were a child of the summer, and on the summer solstice you played in fields of poppies. You died on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year but the longest of my life. Winter took you from me. But to me you will always be a child of the summer. Though in my mind you are not the poppy. No, my dear, beautiful girl. You are gentle rays among golden wheat, or shimmering on a tranquil sea. You are the sun. And that is how I will remember you.
So this is my annual short story, as ever comments are craved! please do comment as it really helps, any opinion is welcome.
© 2011 - 2024 StrawberryRunner
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AndyFightingTalk's avatar
Hi Strawberry, thanks for the story. Powerful stuff. All the best, Andy