On Losing One’s Virginity

Why it’s called deflowering
transcends imagination
groping upon irony.

Days after sweet seventeenth
I gifted her my flower
grinding artlessly in darkness.

A year earlier, she yielded hers
to her soulmate, who promptly
snatched his soul back afterwards.

I cannot say I blame him, as
no magic burst from novice fumbling;
only visceral urgency, dread,

unfathomable yearning, learning
new ways to move, to remain still,
to apologize while still inside

while eyes are still locked, still
one sticky organism with two
muddled minds; an anti-flower.

Deflowering propagandists should
seed new gardens with more accuracy;
first time is slapstick humor at best,

but if both get the joke and laugh
there may be a second time, and yes,
that will be hilariously awful too.

But the third time you may feel petals,
gifting and regifting back and forth
trading an unending source of flowers,

and therefore, the very term we use
 – this so-called “deflowering” – has not
and never will make a lick of sense.

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Written for NaPoWriMo Day22 Prompt: We’re examining “the strength of metonymy in poetry” today.

“…I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.”

NaPoWriMo Day22 Prompt