"My Garden" - LIVE Poetry Reading by Robin Lin Ryding

Live reading of my original slam poem, 'My Garden' at Evansville Art Center's Annual Poetry Night on April 28, 2022.
"MY GARDEN"
By: Robin Lin Ryding
There is a garden that grows inside my head.
Overgrown and wild, it hides away in a dark, musty corner where music does not play and voices do not sing.
Underneath clouds of depression it wilts under constant rain and humidity
Air so thick, my lungs swell at the thought of its moisture taking root in my chest where there’s hardly any room left to breathe
The few flowers that exist cower under the backdrop of weeds that outstretch towards a darkened sky
What little sunshine exists there is swallowed by flora so ravenous it leaves no rays to nourish fragile leaves and buds too frightened to bloom.
My garden is a mess.
Behind my lids, it lies - an abandoned biodome
A forgotten patch of land never to be satiated with what attention it can get.
It clamors
And hollers
Until the screaming is all I hear
Until its yelling is all there is
Until it grows so loudly that I can no longer take the noise and I cry just to give it the water it so desperately demands.
Thick vines overtake already crowded space and squeeze
They squeeze until I suffocate
Squeeze until I’m dried up
Squeeze, and squeeze, and SQUEEZE until there’s nothing left but the dust of budding confidence now blown away by the whispering wind.
I close my eyes and see my garden
Unkempt, unclean, unhealthy.
Ants crawl beneath my skin and itch for me to tend the fertile soil within
Weakened veins beg for a new environment as if different dirt could fix what I’ve let rot into the ground.
But it wasn’t me who did that.
I didn’t plant those weeds here and
I didn’t place clouds in the sky and
I did nothing but care, and love, and trust that everyone except myself would take care of my garden when those pests took control
My tender seedlings could not grow under their constant words and
Lies
And goodbyes that were wrought with expectations nobody could fulfill
How could anybody thrive?
How could I be expected to survive when I was alone in this box filled with mud I was buried under
Where I couldn’t give anymore water
How do you still need more water? You only want more, and more, and more because you say it’s not enough
How can my tears not be enough?
WHEN WILL IT EVER BE ENOUGH?
Never.
It will never be enough.
Just like water is not enough
And sunlight is not enough
And the richest soils money can buy are not enough because brittle compliments and kind tongues will never be enough on their own to make my feeble plants grow.
Rain and shame wash overhead - a blanket of regret that encases me in what this garden could be
Should be
Would be if I had nurtured instead of tortured the life that grew here.
Those weeds can't be ungrounded just like seeds cannot be unsewn
But the mess I’ve allowed to flourish can be plucked and tended.
With grimy gloves and new tools, I can learn to be the gardener these plants deserve
I can feed their scraggly roots with hard work and with sweat rather than drowning them in my regret
I can reap the fruit they’ll bare and harvest the joy they’ll bring once their sprouts shoot up into the sky where there is nothing but empty space
And fresh air
And plenty of room to grow
Because one day this garden will burst with new life and overshadow those damned weeds that lay dormant - forever waiting to overstay their welcome
But this time, it is them that will not survive.
For I am finally ready to help my beautiful garden grow.