The Wilting of Flowers

One day you're thrown into life, screaming and wailing and already one second closer to death than you were before.

And you're constantly scrambling for some sense of permanence, whether it's in a carving of your initials in some old hunk of wood or a dollar donation to a charity you don""t really understand.

This longing for some sort of impact lingers your entire life.

You try to suppress the feeling when talking to strangers about the weather or riding the bus back home.

You form friendships based on favorite colors or sports teams and act as though they're filling the gaping hole inside your chest that's forever reaching for something it can't quite grasp.

Then maybe you plan a future together and say you'll talk after high school but really that means a 'happy birthday' text once a year.

And the next day you wake up and you haven't seen them in three years and it seems life has gone by a little too fast.

Flowers are already lining the tombstones that will someday be yours, and your mothers, and your fathers, and they soon will start to wilt.

You were only born yesterday and you already have both feet in the grave.

Your first step was into a casket and your first word was goodbye,

It seems like that's the only word you can remember.

You wish you could forget it.