Bristley Thistles

Read more from 'A Forgotten Summer' poetry collection

Bristly thistles

Like little missiles

Penetrating clothes to skin

Path after path

Scratch after scratch

Thornes pain fades away

Off route

Thistles deepen

Foot on earth falls

Branches flick

Narrowly missing the eye

Thistles in the thigh

Start to burn

Muscle aches

Bleeding from scratches

Walking through

Thistle patches

Step by step

Pain thrives

Drives the heart

Closer

To where I

Need to be

Never sessile

Like bristly thistles

So no matter how sharpe

Or painful

Your thistle thorns

Will not stop me

Being me.