They never wrote poems for the leaf.
They never carved sonnets into my skin,
never whispered my name like a secret prayer.
No, they left me
silent, still, suffocating in chlorophyll.
They chase roses.
Red-lipped. Sharp. Photogenic in death.
Born to be plucked.
Admired.
Wilted.
Thrown away
And called beautiful for it.
But me?
I rot in silence.
I decompose where no eyes dare look.
Not tragic, not poetic, just waste.
I am the leaf.
I am the thing that held her up.
Fed her. Kept her.
Turned sunlight into survival.
And no one thanked me.
Not once.
You call her delicate.
You call her soft.
She had thorns
and you bled for her.
And you thanked her for it.
I bled too.
But not from thorns;
from being torn off,
day after day,
gutted in green
while you searched for red.
You didn’t love me.
You used me.
Pressed me in books,
left me on sidewalks,
burned me in autumn and called it beautiful;
but not me,
just the fire I gave you on my way out.
I’m not jealous of the rose.
I pity her.
Her glory is short.
Her life, theatrical.
Her love, performative.
She dies in vases.
I die standing.
I outlive her.
I saw her fall.
Petals curling like lies in the sun.
And I stayed.
I stayed.
I always endlessly stay.
Because that’s what leaves do, right?
We stay.
Until we’re crushed under boots.
Blown off branches.
Suffocated under snow.
No eulogy. No grave. Just compost.
But maybe that’s what I am now.
Compost.
Fertilizer for future beauty.
The thing you never thanked
but still needed to grow.
I am the ugly part of growth.
I am the sacrifice you forgot.
And if no one will write poems for the leaf,
then I will.
I will claw my verses into the tree bark
and let the forest hear my name.
I will not be soft.
I will not be sweet.
I will be feral,
ferocious,
goddamn unforgettable.
So go.
Chase your roses.
Pick them. Praise them.
Bleed for them.
But when winter comes
and you have no petals left to love;
you’ll remember
the leaf you left behind.
The one that fed the flower.
The one that died for it.
The one that never asked to be loved,
just remembered.