Perishing

I’m always sweet
The sweetest version of the sweetest girl
To the people I wish so desperately to stay
As a kid I watched them all leave
And I cried and cried for hours
Laying in my grandmother’s bed

She used to be the only one who had never left me.

Until a met a boy, a sweet boy
Who loved me the right way but who I could never love back
Not like that
So I was the one who left him. 
I simply cannot recall the last time 
I was in his house
And this thought often haunts me. 

I do recall the last gift I ever gave him
It was a sunflower
Whether it was because he didn’t know how to take care of it
Or it was simply too fragile
It died by the end of September
We died by the end of December
Although we had died way before that

So now I plant Gardenias
I name them as if they were childhood toys
I pray for a God I don’t believe in
When I have nightmares about departures
I hold my cat so tightly and dread all the losses 
I am yet to experience

I look at the mirror thinking about
Temporary love
Temporary life
Temporary sex 
All things that seem to perish around me
I murder them all.