Our Garden

It was the last gift you gave me.

A bag of seeds. We spent

days tending that barren patch of clay– barricading it,

watering it,

tiling it again and again. Then we started feeding it all those fancy mineral mixes

advertised on TV, and spreading cow poop because

you said your momma said “baby, growing up through

shit makes a person stronger.”

So, I guess flowers could be like people too.

If only we weren’t so fragile.

We held hands, as I poured the tiny little dandelion

rocks into those dark holes, and then we cover them the rich dirt we found in the woods by your house the

night we tried to find that falling star. Then we let go.

We always knew they would grow, but I guess

we shouldn’t have planted seeds that can survive anywhere.

The day the moving truck came for your things I tilled that nostalgic patch of ground. And now

when I look out window and I see us

pouring ourselves into black, I want to

burst through the glass, sprint across the damp brown grass and stop me from falling.

But I don’t, because I’d prove to myself that I’m going crazy

without you. I hate living

with knowing every year those damn dandelions are coming back. And every year

the wind will blow more pieces of us away. And every year

more dandelions will grow, until the whole yard looks like our garden.

I want those flowers to die.