Love Me Not

Like petals falling, we were never meant to last. Watching the flowers fade, I grieve twice—once for their withering beauty and again for a love that died with them. (Picture by Trisha Vishwanath)

I watch as the last bouquet of flowers you would ever bring me, wither. With that, a part of me wilts as well. Each petal falls like a goodbye I never wanted to hear.

What was once in bloom, now remains lost and scattered across the floor in my room.

A black car speeds by and my head turns. It's instinct now, reflex, part of my nature. I hope it's you, but it's never you, hope isn't in my favor. But that doesn't stop me, I keep looking. I look like a fool, stuck on this loop.

Your songs still live on my phone, only now I listen to them alone.

I remember when you first played them, stole my aux, and said: "Just you listen".

We laughed at the "yeahs" and "skrrs". And now my love feels like an imposition.

"How was your day?", you ask me.

You seem fine. Untouched, unmoved.

Like I was a fleeting season, a memory already forgotten.

But I'm still stuck in this endless replay of what we were, what we could've been, what should've happened.

I carry it all. Hoping, if the memories are alive, then so are we.

Every day there's a new cut and I bleed.

I scream until my lungs give out.

I watch as the last petal falls, does he love me, or does he not?

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