The Perfect Bouquet Breaking Girl Take a Little Time Without Worry

The Perfect Bouquet

WINSTON DERDEN

I’d like a bloom that says, “This is a tentative opening, but hopeful,”

a stem that says, “I don’t know how long I can keep this up.”

Blossoms that say, “I’m hypoallergenic,

“quite safe to be around.” Maybe more than a few of those.

Ferns and greenery, full and lush — baby’s breath may be presumptuous.

No arrangements with thorns, I bleed easily, should the flowers be returned.

And, please, perhaps for later, an additive for the water

that won’t let buds decay.

Winston Derden is a poet and fiction writer residing in Houston, Texas. His poetry has appeared in journals including Blue Collar Review, Big River Poetry Review, Barbaric Yawp, Soft Cartel, Plum Tree Tavern, Literary Yard, Ekphrastic Review, and numerous anthologies. He holds a BA and an MA from the University of Texas, Austin.

Breaking Girl

WINSTON DERDEN

What chaos within sent you to the psychiatric ward again, my little box of horrors?

What corrupted love darkens your psyche?

Cracked on the inside, bending not your nature, have I asked you to explain what you’re afraid of understanding?

Does that sharpen your appetite for another fistful of pills?

Then I won’t repeat the question. Your emotional jiggle de jour doesn’t much matter. It’s a rolling state of crisis to distract from abandonment, fear, anger.

How casual the emotional brutality you use to stave off loved ones, to hurt before they hurt you, when all they bear is caring.

And what power, that weakness of emotion encased in rigidity of will that drives you, frightened little girl at the controls of a woman,

who hides her eyes and thinks she goes unseen because she cannot see.

Take a Little Time Without Worry

WINSTON DERDEN

I’m carrying an empty beer keg up marble steps. A businessman with a briefcase holds open one of the double doors and says, “Where are you going?” I am slightly incensed by his question. I answer, “To the train station.” Inside, the white marble floors look gritty and worn. I realize I do not have my wallet, that I left the hotel without it, that I don’t recall where I was when I last had it, perhaps at a restaurant table. I think, Go to the next city, book a hotel room, come back for the wallet. I think that’s stupid. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant. I can’t remember the name of the hotel. Surely that will come to me. It doesn’t. I remember instead three empty beer kegs need to be washed out, I then consider a woman who once loved me wants me back. She has multiple identities. I’m not sure where she left me.