Hanahaki

“Hanahaki disease (花吐き病 (Japanese); 하나하키병 (Korean); 花吐病 (Chinese)) is a fictional disease where the victim of unrequited or one-sided love begins to vomit or cough up the petals and flowers of a flowering plant growing in their lungs, which will eventually grow large enough to render breathing impossible if left untreated.”

On Winter Hill I was born a bluebottle. I kiss black with the soot from all I have destroyed. The needle point bleeds our bonds into the rivers running through distant crags. They climb us in their moon boots, side-stepping our secrets that cleave the moss. Your laughter would anchor every city, in their ungodly halos, to the potshots slung at our sockets. What becomes of us when our bodies are empty chairs facing the leather of an operating room? We were herbalists in love, growing burdock in our lungs until yours were ardently consumed.