his fabricated words,

a repetition of

I love you

watered her down.

she had once been a beautiful garden,

but he didn't know that you were supposed to pull the weeds,

he didn't know how much to water her,

always either

too little or too much,

he didn't know that flowers died.

•

his touch,

in the beginning,

enticed her,

made her beg for more.

now the mere thought of him,

burns her skin.

years ago,

his eyes were filled with embers

and he smelled like bonfires.

now she can't even differentiate between

the tobacco and sweat concoction that follows him.

did his words

water him down

too?

Remember in grade school

when we'd scrape our nails against friend's arms,

"planting crops" and "watering plants,"

telling naïve kids a garden would grow?

Well I was one of those naïve kids,

looking expectantly at my raw arm. Wondering when my garden would grow.

I remember coming to my father,

thrusting my nearly bleeding limb in his face,

asking how long it would take

for the flowers to show.

He'd take his cigarette

out from between his lips

and placed the tip

from my elbow to be wrist.

"You're too damaged, my dear."

He taught me that

my body is concrete,

meant for people to walk over me.

Nothing beautiful can come

from something so dead.

And I believed him.

she was fragile as a rose;

straight A's. never kissed. small.

he was a gun cocked and ready;

a challenge. dirty leather. smoke.

he was drawn to her innocence.

she wanted a taste of rebellion.

the most tragic of love stories.

On the corner of Sixteenth and O, Midtown Sacramento, just before the crosswalk, there's a mashed daisy, and sitting an inch away, a smoldering Lucky Strike butt. The sickly sweet perfume of the charred tobacco leaves puffs steadily and whips around and up the wall of the apartments, eventually able to leave a jaundiced stain on the stucco. Whatever caused such a scene, didn't take very long to transpire, but there is one thing to take away from it, for almost anyone.

Smoking can kill, but a broken heart is an instant life stopper.

Her hands trembled

Sirens filled the air

but she heard nothing

The world was on mute

It was only a second

She looked away from the road

To see a new text

Asking if she was at home

She veered onto the sidewalk

And panic set in

Instead of the brake

The wrong peddle went in

She hit a little boy

riding his bike

His parents

A wall and a posted light

Blood and body bags

Removed from her view

But it couldn't be them

None of this is true

All that was left

Of her now broken life

Was a smashed daisy, cigarette

and her little brothers bike

When I pictured a flower (a rose) next to a cigarette butt, I thought of it in a symbolic manner. To me, those two things represent two different types of love.

The rose shows that no matter how beautiful your love is, if you're not careful or you hold on too tightly to it, it can hurt you and have unrequited consequences.

The cigarette represents the kind of love that you know, and it's obvious, that it is wrong and you know in the long run that you will be hurt by it, but you can't or won't break away from it and end it.

I dunno. That's just what I thought.

I was outside earlier having a smoke. A period of time went by time after I had stepped out and lit up. I heard a high pitched laugh followed by a few chuckles. I could see a group of kids j- walking 22nd Ave. I walked around the corner to get a better view. They started to skip and play games with one another. Publicly teasing each other like they wanted more. Surprisingly the girl pulled her skirt up the side of her thigh to give him a slight peek. The guy reacted quickly by grabbing her and pulling her close until her body met his. Young lovers testing the limits. I smiled and began to turn away until they started to kiss and he pulls out a flower from his back pocket to give to her but she pulls away to keep walking. Standing there hoping she'd turn back to see why he had stopped. She did and then noticed he had a small flower in his grip. She walks up and kisses him. Taking the flower and tossing it against the sidewalk. They locked lips for a while then continued on up the street. I walked over to where she threw the flower. It was smashed up against the sidewalk. I sat there thinking about the guys I've dated and how not one ever thought about giving me a flower. That boy who clearly liked her enough to give her one has just been tossed onto the sidewalk. All of the sudden I remembered I'd forgotten the time. I couldn't stay out there forever. It was time to return to work so I headed in. I left the boys flower beside my cigarette smashed up against the sidewalk. A lover and a hopeless romantic. They always end up in the shadows of those who are unable to love at all.

She stared at the dandelion. It was so bright, so beautiful and pure. She couldn’t believe where it was growing. It had plowed through a crack in the concrete. It laid in a bed of grime off of old worker’s boots and pulverized gravel. Somehow that tiny seed had bobbed its way over speeding cars and around the heads of oblivious office goers. It had spiraled through the turbulent air of New York City at rush hour and landed in precisely the right spot where it would have a chance to grow. Just a chance, mind. It was still the unfortunate handful cast by the farmer in that old Sunday school proverb. One in rock, one in good soil. One in the slums and one in the Ritz.

Was it less than the others? No. Perhaps it was more. Perhaps it was invaluable. Unparalleled in strength. Despite the adversity there it was, open to the sun, open to the air and rain and glorious opportunity. Would it not be more resistant to the storms? Would it not be heartier against the drought? All of its brethren in the rich ground were naive to struggle. Their roots had not been starved and made wiry and tough.

She smiled. She adjusted her shirt, splaying the letters of the restaurant over her chest. Maybe she was just a waitress now, but she would be more. One day she’d be the one shining in the sun. She’d be the one people stopped and admired amidst the mottled grey walls and the phallic graffiti.

One last glance, she thought. She looked back as she was leaving. A fat man in a suit, his body rolling loosely as he moved, plowed forward. His lips, two slugs making love, smacked away as he spit profanities into his phone. His shiny shoes clipped the flower’s top, decapitating it. His cigarette fell from his fingers and lit the leaves aflame.

She watched until it was consumed by the fire. Then she turned and walked away.

In the middle of the day he was bolting down the side walk like he was running of sunshine, a handful of flowers at his side. Zig zaging through crowds, he clearly had someplace to be and no time to get there. His face full of worry, the inside of his lip raw, blood pooling. At the green traffic lights he glanced at his watch, shifted from one foot to the other and gave his life over to the people behind the wheel as he crossed in front of the on coming traffic.

He turned down a road, his feet stoped and his breath deepened, then he was off again to number 24. He jumped the gate, paced to the door, about to knock and he noticed the pile of ash and cigarette butts on the floor.

She had waited and worried, and waited, some more but just not long enough.

In anger the flowers hit the wall, smashing the heads off, joining the dirt on the floor.

He was too late and he couldn't blame anyone but the florist in that shop. Sadness changed to anger as he headed back to Bloom.

You sigh as you lean back against the windshield of your car, legs sprawled out over the brown paint-chipped hood as you look up at the night sky. A cigarette burns brightly between your lips, and you pluck it away to puff out a neat little ring of smoke. Your brother taught you how to do that before he died. Fucker was drinking-and-driving, the dumb shit. 4 years.

But tonight is not about him. You miss him, but he's gone.

You sigh as you slide off your car, combing freckled fingers through your short crop of bubblegum-pink hair, and toss the butt of your cigarette on the ground. You're about to grind down on it with the heel of your boot when you notice a little flower. It's a smashed-up gladiolus, as pink as your hair. You remember from when your brother taught you about flowers and their meanings, that the gladiolus means "strength of character."

You smile a little, feel the iron-grey ring in your lip with your tongue, and stoop to pick up the tattered remains of the flower before smushing your cigarette into the pavement. "Gotta get some more smokes, Palloix," you remind yourself as you get into your car, pouring the crushed flower into a cupholder before fiddling with one of the many charms on your keyring. It's the sigh for Pluto, like a capital P and L mixed together. You'll always say it's a planet.

Focusing, you start your car and ease it onto the road, leaving one more cigarette butt on the sidewalk of that old parking lot and one less crumpled flower.