Nerium

Poetry is the place I turn to when the world
tries to eradicate my kind like a noxious weed.
But even a weed needs a place to grow and we thrive
in places not meant to sustain us.

We reach for a  piquant sun that withers
and singes our edges and we are destined
to sprout beneath eroding concrete.
It lacerates our tender beauty as we push through
the jagged openings left behind after a ravaging rain.

Light trickles through the cracks, taunting us with false hopes,
illuminating the darkness like a neon exit sign.
I tug at my roots to make an escape
but I am small, and I dry up in that angry sun
as the soles of those above crush me without
a second glance.