Yellow Flowers

All she ever wanted from me was flowers. No yellow ones though, yellow flowers were a bad omen in her eyes. I wish I would have known that before I bought her that first bouquet of marigolds. I was trying to be unique, anyone could receive roses, but she deserved something more. I knew I loved her though I hadn’t said it when that bouquet exchanged hands and she loved me too. It was a silent agreement, but those flowers made it real.

When she started to cry, I believed her when she said it was tears of joy. But I realize now it was fear. Fear that we would end. For how can the first bouquet be wrong?

She was scared after those flowers, scared to love me but she never showed it. Scared that I would break her heart. Scared that it would be written in the stars but we wouldn’t know how to read stars. Yet, I never had to doubt her love. I never felt like her guard was up. I never felt scared.

I felt she was the first person to ever truly care. She cared enough that she turned a boy into a man. A feat that seemed impossible. There is something to be said to the people who see the value in us when the world views us as discarded. If I knew that ‘something’, I’d say it to her.

‘Something’ could be, “I love you!” but that's not enough. I’ve said it a million times and meant it every time. ‘Something’ is so much more. ‘Something’ would have to incorporate “I’m sorry!” It would have to start with the marigolds. ‘Something’ probably most resembles something like a “thank you!” But that could never do what she did justice.

She disguised growing up as fun. She hid throwing away bad habits through love. She concealed the fact that I was broken to make me whole. But all of that took its toll. Eventually, the strain got to her and to me and we were left with no choice but to call it quits.

It wasn’t until the heartbreak that I noticed the fatal error of the marigolds. It wasn’t until looking back at our first pictures, seeing her hold those yellow flowers that I realized what I did. See, yellow flowers represented what she could have been. A life she could have lived. It wouldn’t have been much different, but maybe it would have been easier. Maybe the stress of those yellow flowers wouldn’t have been put on her tiny shoulders.

She told me the meaning of those yellow flowers once we had been together for a while. When I tried to spoil her with a similar bouquet of marigolds. Through tears that were crying not only for herself but for her whole family, “I told you never to get me yellow flowers.” When someone you love cry’s like that, the only thing to do is wrap your arms around them as tight as you can, “why not, baby.” Wiping tears on my shirt she told me of her family’s history, “My mother struggled to have me. She tried before and failed in the worst way possible. She lost my sibling in birth and to comfort her the doctor brought her flowers, yellow flowers.”

I know it’s bizarre to hate a plant because of someone else’s history. Someone you’re somewhat removed from. But I hate marigolds just the same. I blame marigolds for the demise of what was a great thing. I blame yellow flowers for ending what should have been the end game.