the flowers grow back now that you're gone
the bamboo loses its sickly pallor
it drinks water now
instead of letting it stagnate.

i don't know how long.
i don't know how many months or days.
time passed is meaningless to me now
i have lost the desire to frantically recall what i lost each day i was with you.

the flowers grow back and i grow strangely around these past events
coming up through the cracks
like a gravelly ****
still inside me
but dormant

sometimes