The Boy Who Ate Flowers by Bogdan Dragos

  He ate flowers.
  
 this mentally challenged boy
 from the countryside
 I used to watch him
 in the fields
 when I visited my grandparents
 as a kid
 He was like an exotic thing
 a wild beast chasing
 static pray
 They had no chance,
 the flowers
 he would assault them
 with a killer's smile, frothing,
 and would grab
 and tear and rip them from
 the stem and
 would eat them
  
 Nobody knew why
 and the only explanation given
 was that he was insane
  
 then the men and women
 who saw him would
 scream at him
 to stop and he would raise
 his head and watch them
 like a deer surprised by
 headlights
 Then he would spit the colorful
 froth from his big mouth
 and would run home
 hopping and leaping like a horse
 through the tall grass
  
 He was mostly inoffensive,
 this flower eating boy
 but they all told me to stay away
 from him and would
 always chase him away when
 he got too close
  
 Time passed and I moved to the
 city and went to school there
 and stopped visiting the
 countryside and its wonders
 I got busy
 and my busy life drove away the
 magic and mystery of childhood
  
 The flower eating boy is now but
 a memory
 neither good
 nor bad
 just strange, interesting
  
 He doesn't eat flowers anymore
 because he doesn't live in the
 countryside anymore
 No, from what I've heard
 he's in some mental facility and it was
 his last flowery meal that sent him there
  
 I don't know,
 maybe if they hanged signs with
 "Don't wear flowers in your hair!"
 around the village and the fields
 that little girl would've been saved
 and the village would still have its
 magic beast.