Running for Peonies

I've been running recently
Haven't done it since that time outside your house
It was hot as fuck and humid as fuck
Downtown was empty as fuck at seven o'fuck

But that's Jacksonville for you.

I've been running recently
Stopping to take pictures of the flowers I pass
I don't know their names
I don't have words for their colors
Red? Purple? Shit I don't know

Some purple petals grow out of the tree branches and I think,
"Are these flowers weeds? This looks like an infection
How does this work?
Can something so beautiful kill something else?"

Obviously yes, hahaha
Of fucking course
ha ha ha

My favorite flowers are in front of the apartment I moved into for you
There's this tree in the middle of the courtyard
And a branch comes down to the left, right where my head is
And the flowers at the end are the pinkest pinkest pink

I fucking love those flowers

I see them when I go on runs,
And off I went,
Down the street:

A storm was coming,
the pressure dropping
the Wind rushing,
and I had a good thirty minute slip where I could get outside:

The trees were stripped,
Petals rising upwards and downwards like snowflakes
Just for me, the asshole going outside during a pandemic.

I was trying a new route.
I always try new routes.
I'm looking for peonies
They're the one flower I know
because you made me learn.

I've scoured my apartment complex.
The one next door.
The million-dollar gardens of my neighbors.
I run at a slow six and a half mile per hour
Scowering.

Today, when I got back to my apartment at 2,
I came empty-handed and with photos of grass.

The pinkest pinkest pinks were stripped by the wind
Dangling.