You said the way everything
is so broken between us is
kind of pretty, like
a rotting flower. Were we always

a flower? Building up to those few minutes
of beautiful blossom, just waiting
to live out our potential, hoping
that we could miraculously last longer than
our alloted time, knowing

we never would? Were we always fated
to this slow withering
and pulling back, each returning, folding
into themselves, wishing
the clock would run backwards? You said

to dust all things return, and we
are trying to delay
the inevitable. All I know
is that all the tears I have shed
will not regrow this flower.