Allergies

I used to decorate my apartment with dahlias, chrysanthemums, daisies, carnations, roses, Queen Victorias, sunflowers, and lavender. He is allergic to flowers. He came into my life and he is not his allergies. He moved in with me, and he colored in the places that could not be filled by dying plants in old vases. He made me origami ones, let me paint the walls whatever crazy colors, and got me mugs with all different kinds on them.

I still missed them. I missed cutting the stems so they bloomed in vases, changing their water every day, their faces always bright when I walked in.

His face used to light up like that. Now we have entered the monotony of living together, of choosing each other every day.

One day, I didn’t choose him. I chose the dying blooms that stayed bright for a few days, always unique and always replaceable.

I cheated on him for a day. I told him I was visiting my grandmother and drove two hours in the opposite direction.

The superbloom was yellow and orange and green and shallow. The California poppies were so small I had to lean down in the field. I couldn’t lay down or I’d come home all itchy myself. He’d ask me if I’d rolled around in hay. “Even worse,” I’d have to tell him, “pollen!”

And he would jump out of bed and strip the sheets and strip our clothes and throw me in the shower and join me and push me up against the wall and I’d never regret bringing home pollen until he was teary-eyed for the next month.

“You’re trying to kill me” he would say.

“If I was, I wouldn’t have told you.”

I just wanted excitement. I just wanted to get in trouble. I wanted him to get mad at me for legitimate things that are my fault, not for things I could only do so much about. For not taking off my shoes right away when I come in, for not washing the dishes the way he does, for not pausing before I spoke, for being honest without tact, for forgetting what I said in passing. Instead, laying down in the superbloom is completely my fault, and I would know completely that I was in the wrong.