dried flowers & addicts

The baby's breath blooms drying on my windowsill have been there for months. I imagine that if I picked them up and squeezed one, it would crush and crumble between my fingers, making a dust of sorts. I could put it on my tongue, and it might dissolve, and then I could see more stars than other people, although I could never test the theory. Or I might just end up with a bad taste in my mouth, sweet and stale and papery. But they might bloom inside me if I swallowed them. Wouldn't that be lovely?

I could have flowers growing through my organs, and you could see the faint outlines of them in my arms, all the way up to my fingertips. That would be very pretty. If I happened to die, they could take my heart out to look at it, and it would be filled with little white flowers coming out of the aorta, or maybe there would be roots. I don't know if the roots would be in my heart, brain, or stomach. Any of those would make sense to me. But before I died, I could have a garden inside me. And if someone asked, "Why does it look like there are flowers inside your skin?", I alone of all people would have the privilege of answering, "Because there are."

I would be so lucky.

But I guess it would get tiresome, like all things eventually do. The flowers inside me would have to die, just like the dried flowers that I put on my tongue and swallowed to birth them in the beginning. They would wither away until you couldn't see them under my skin, and you wouldn't see them coming out of my heart, only fine white dust like an addict, which I am.

Which we all are. To beauty, and to nice things, and to feeling special.

Oh, how we love that. I would have my fix for awhile, but then I would itch for more.

Maybe then I would dry lavender flowers on my windowsill.