I never desired flowers--
not even when all my friends swooned
over the boy in sixth grade who asked
out his crush with a bundle of purple lilacs.
Not when my dentist rewarded me
after every visit with my choice
of a red, pink, or yellow carnation
because she knew I hated swishing fluoride.
(I mean, c’mon, that’s the worst reward ever
for burning my tongue with acid only for my teeth
to inevitably decay when I die anyway.)
Not when the boy who liked me in middle school
put one pink rose in my locker on Valentine’s Day
(he thought I didn’t like him because he was black
but in truth I liked him more than I liked most people,
just not like that. I never had it in me to tell him
I had a crush on a girl.) As far as flowers go, I think
it’s a waste of money to give a gift that dies
just as easily as a person’s superficial relationship.
Appropriate maybe, but what the hell am I supposed
to do with a bundle of plants? Stare at it? Smell it?
Watch it die like my will to attempt to form a connection
with disconnected human beings? Seems pointless.
Like the time a girl I broke up with put a bundle of roses
on my car while I was at basketball practice, less than
twenty-fours after I said it was over. She really thought
she could make up for being a shitty person by buying
pieces of the damn earth. And I guess I should mention
she left a note scratched with black ink (onto a napkin)
that read, “each rose symbolizes something I love about you”
and for the first time in a long time she was right
because what is love if not temporary and prone to death?
I threw the flowers away before they died. I knew it was no use
watching them decay when I could just kill them myself.
not even when all my friends swooned
over the boy in sixth grade who asked
out his crush with a bundle of purple lilacs.
Not when my dentist rewarded me
after every visit with my choice
of a red, pink, or yellow carnation
because she knew I hated swishing fluoride.
(I mean, c’mon, that’s the worst reward ever
for burning my tongue with acid only for my teeth
to inevitably decay when I die anyway.)
Not when the boy who liked me in middle school
put one pink rose in my locker on Valentine’s Day
(he thought I didn’t like him because he was black
but in truth I liked him more than I liked most people,
just not like that. I never had it in me to tell him
I had a crush on a girl.) As far as flowers go, I think
it’s a waste of money to give a gift that dies
just as easily as a person’s superficial relationship.
Appropriate maybe, but what the hell am I supposed
to do with a bundle of plants? Stare at it? Smell it?
Watch it die like my will to attempt to form a connection
with disconnected human beings? Seems pointless.
Like the time a girl I broke up with put a bundle of roses
on my car while I was at basketball practice, less than
twenty-fours after I said it was over. She really thought
she could make up for being a shitty person by buying
pieces of the damn earth. And I guess I should mention
she left a note scratched with black ink (onto a napkin)
that read, “each rose symbolizes something I love about you”
and for the first time in a long time she was right
because what is love if not temporary and prone to death?
I threw the flowers away before they died. I knew it was no use
watching them decay when I could just kill them myself.