Picking apart the pieces of a pinecone
\nDigging with fingertips sore from the pain
\nFrom the sharp edges of a hardened core
\nThe consistent pulling apart to pry open
\nThe heavy wooden doors of the heart
\nIndividually plucking the pieces like the strings of a harp
\nAngels screaming when the pluck turns to a pull
\nLike a sharp withdrawal of breath
\nThat doesn\u2019t belong in your lungs
\nThis poison of decay
\nNot the decay of fall
\nLike the slowly drifting leaves that cascade
\nFrom heights unattainable by man
\nThat can only be felt by the swift sigh of the wind
\nBetween your grasping fingertips
\nLike the grasping fingers of your love
\nThat slips away because you weren\u2019t strong enough
\nTo hold on to them as they begged with teary eyes
\nLooking up at you from the great descent
\nAnd you let them go, knowing you couldn\u2019t bear the weight
\nOf both of you and the love that was creating a canopy
\nOver your heads and compressing your hearts
\nAnd lungs until even the soft scent of fall could not revive you
\nOn this cold winter day
\nAs the last of the fall leaves are being swept away down the stream
\nWhere you once cast little paper boats
\nWondering as you held hands where they would land
\nHoping for fantasy but knowing even as your fingers unwove
\nThat they would end caught in the dam of nature
\nOf things never quite meant to be
\nBut it wasn\u2019t enough to make you say no
\nEven as you plucked the ribs of a pinecone
\nAsking whether she loved you or not
\nLike petals of a daisy that have atrophied and petrified
\nJust as the bitterness of the question has cemented in your heart
\nLike a cancer hardening you from the inside out
\nUntil you are as purely petrified
\nAs the dissected limbs of lumber left for dead
\nEach band stands out, creating a carousel of time
\nBut the Braille of years gone by has become illegible
\nLeaving you to remember the lost sound of symphonies
\nMusic notes echoing into starless nights
\nCaught in cashmere skies cascading with rain
\nWhere only the earthy smell of Petrichor remains
\nAnd the scattered scales of the barren pinecone
\nLeft in the fall foliage like spent shells of artillery
\nEven these bullets cannot stop the pain in you
\nAs you abandon the stripped pinecone
\nAnd begin to pull apart the sharp edges of yourself
\nTo find the hardened core within
\nHollow it out until it is empty
\nAnd start over again<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Picking apart the pieces of a pinecone Digging with fingertips sore from the pain From the sharp edges of a hardened core The consistent pulling apart to pry open The heavy wooden doors of the heart Individually plucking the pieces like the strings of a harp Angels screaming when the pluck turns to a pull […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[198,1475,134,1114,1961,2041,2040,1262,194],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.multer.com\/people\/monica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.multer.com\/people\/monica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.multer.com\/people\/monica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.multer.com\/people\/monica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.multer.com\/people\/monica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.multer.com\/people\/monica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4543,"href":"https:\/\/www.multer.com\/people\/monica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542\/revisions\/4543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.multer.com\/people\/monica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.multer.com\/people\/monica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.multer.com\/people\/monica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}