if you receive this
by the black flower
hello beloved
before i give you this poem…
we live in a world that has decided that emotional openness is a character flaw. that to feel deeply is to be naive. that to love without armor is to be asking for it. that presence, real presence, the kind that costs you something, is either a manipulation tactic or a sign that you do not know your own value. and that softness, in a person who has clearly survived a great deal, is simply immaturity waiting to be corrected by experience.
i want to push back on all of that.
the Black Flower writes from a place that i had to earn. not through becoming harder. through becoming more honest. through sitting with my own darkness long enough to know that the darkness is not the enemy, the pretending is. through choosing, again and again, to remain soft in a world that keeps presenting excellent arguments for why i should not.
and the poetry that comes from that place is vulnerability, it is not the romanticization of pain. it is the attempt to say something true about what it costs to love openly, without guarantee, in a world that has normalized the extraction of feeling without reciprocity.
because that is what we have been taught to accept. that you can be held without being cared for. that you can be wanted without being valued. that the person who loves more fully is the one who loses. and i refuse that.
this poem is a prayer. it is also a boundary. it is also a kind of begging, but the kind of begging that knows its own worth. the kind that says: i am offering you something real. i need you to know what you are holding before you decide whether you want it.
so before you read what follows, know that the black flower does not write to be consumed. she writes to be met.
if you receive this
if you receive this
know what you are holding
this is not a simple thing
that arrived at your door without history
without cost
without the quiet courage it took
to cross the distance between keeping it safe
and laying it at your feet
i have loved before
and i know what hands can do to something tender
i know what fear takes away from the heart,
so i am asking you
not demanding
asking
if you are not ready to hold this
let it go
the way you release a flower you did not mean to pick
gently
without apology
just open your hands
and let it return to where it belongs
do not pluck what you cannot tend to
do not take what you cannot carry
do not pull me close in the dark
and disappear in the light
the worst thing you can do
is not reject me
rejection i can hold
rejection is honest
the worst thing
is to take this and waste it
to receive something real
and treat it like it costs nothing
because it costs everything
to love openly
without armor
without guarantee
is an act of prayer
and prayer deserves a sanctuary
not a slaughter
so before you receive this
i need you to know
that what stands before you
has passed through fire to get here
has sat with its own darkness
has chosen
again and again
to remain soft
that is not weakness
that is the most sacred kind of power
so if you are ready
receive it fully
let it change you the way real things change you
slowly
permanently
from the inside
and if you are not
it is okay
i mean that
just say so
with the same tenderness
i offered you this with
and i will understand
for i would rather be released with grace
than held without care
love,
bose.