innocent growing from wicked ashes
how we are all made of dust & stars
raised from what we are fed
roots tangled in heritage
     inherently rotten
these buds pure and red
cultivated from wrongs and rites
a compost of angels and snakes
     & shadows that never knew
were never told they could shed light
hoe equipped vagrants prick
     sacrificed fingers
bitter and beautiful and belligerent
cursed by the wicked
barb wire thickets and blood drops
a great facade 
pretending, but they’ll never bloom
just rust and splinter
starving the thorns of their inheritance 
religiously misleading and alluring
     but rotten
a flower-crown fit for a thief, or a corpse
or a queen
profited for destruction and climbing up walls
poison ivy crushing from outside to in
another ruin to legacy
another layer of mulch