In this cascading purpleness
your tears are falling flower leaves
your fears are brittle butterflies
you tear your hair as exercise
cause in this crimson rain
it hurts much less
since springtime petals hide
the bruises on your naked skin.
Red Petal 2 by Jean Degottex
Susie wants us to write to the wonderful pictures of petals explosion at Toads. Not sure how close I was, but though the pictures was wonderful, I could just think about what hides behind.
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June 5, 2015
Björn Rudbergs writings 
Oh my, so poignant
That’s a fabulous poem, Bjorn–hiding bruises, yes.
I think it’s wonderful – an unusually beautiful but no less powerful way of addressing this issue.
It is so awful to think of one hiding abuse behind flower petals, but of course, people hide abuse behind all kinds of beautification. Thanks, Bjorn, for thoughtful poem. k.
I agree with the others…this holds a bitter sweetness, indeed.
Yikes. What hides behind the beauty. That could be said of quite a few, and is quite a scary thought. Abuse is such a heartbreaking and tragic thing in our world.
So sad to have to hide bruising behind the beauty of petals…perhaps it is comfort from terror. A powerful piece..Thank you so much for taking part in the challenge!
Very thoughtful, Björn….
Very intruiging imagery, I especially liked this line:”your fears are brittle butterflies”, it was an experience to try and weave this image in my head.
Reminds one of crying in the rain. The tears are not seen though apparent. Great write Bjorn!
Hank
maybe it’s a bit like crying in the rain – seems a bit easier as the rain covers the tears as well…
ha – i swear i didn’t see hank’s comment before i pressed publish
Beautiful & poignant 🙂
Wow! This is very powerful. I think your choice to write in the second person creates a lot of empathy in the reader.
This made me think of how we can sometimes hide our pain behind a surface that we work to make beautiful and impervious–so that it draws the eye instead of our bruises–the rhyme and meter here really enhance this feeling of a revelation, as does the brevity and as Kerry says, the second-person viewpoint of the ‘you.’
victims of all sorts hide behind a facade of one kind or another… Hiding behind a beautiful facade – does that make it hurt less? I guess it helps one to avoid dealing with it…
could get more harsh than this
“your fears are brittle butterflies”
much love…
Fantastic sound and rhythm here. The gentility of the language belies the pain underneath. Well done.
Awesome rhyme – the stuff of goosebumps. Almost (but not quite) had the effect of lessening the impact of the content … which I thought was really cool, because that what is what savvy spin-doctoring politicos and advertisers do, all the time,
It seems the person is justifying the abuse. That’s so sad. Well done, Bjorn. — Suzanne