floral feelings

He was annoyed, at first. At least, he thought that was the word. It was the feeling he got when looking at a bouquet with things like red roses and white lilacs being paired with orange lilies. It just wasn't right, hatred doesn't fit with purity and love, despite what the lilies may do for the visual composition.

And this boy, peering over his shoulder at the hydrangeas he was drawing onto the handout sheet, did not fit either. There wasn't a flower to this feeling. He couldn't understand it yet.

"Woah, that's really pretty, can you draw me?" The boy spoke, far too cheerily. The image of yellow carnations filled his brain and he understood. Disdain, that was the word.

---

He was about four when he found the book. It was big, with a pretty cover, and he'd seen his father read books of this shape before, of course he'd want to read it. Diagrams of flowers and words he didn't understand filled the page, but that didn't stop him.

"Whatcha readin, squirt?" His dad caught him trying to decipher a word on the page for baby's breath.

His bright eyes were locked onto a word he didn't understand. "Papa, what does 'in-no-kenk' mean?

His father pointed to the word. "This one?" He nodded. "That's innocence. And it means... Well, you know how fire can hurt you if you touch it?" He nodded again. "Innocence is when you don't know that it will hurt you, you just think it's pretty. You don't know anything bad. Kinda like you, kiddo," He said, giving him a noogie. The child just stared at the book, eager to continue, and so they did.

---

For him, emotions were flowers, sometimes trees. It was always hard for him to express them, and only identifiable when the blossoms filled his mind's eye. Joy was pink roses and tulips. Hatred was orange lilies. Sadness was cypresses. They corresponded with the definitions in the book, they were the only way he could understand.

Apathetic was the word his teachers tacked onto him in parent teacher conferences. Group activities and play were met with stoic refusals and self-induced isolation. The other kids didn't understand him. He was okay with that. The flowers understood him, and he understood them.

---

"Okay, okay you don't gotta draw me, but like. Those are really pretty. What kind of flowers are they?"

He was tempted not to answer. He did anyways. "Hydrangeas."

"Oh neat! They look really good! So anyways, what's your name? I'm David, I just moved here!" The yellow carnations twisted into white roses and sycamore blossoms. Innocent, curious.

"Aaron."

"Nice to meetcha, Aaron! Wanna be friends?" And his heart stops in his chest, pencil clattering to the ground.

---

Visions of green carnations and daisies danced in his head, and as the blood dripped from his chin, eyes black and swollen, he was a love-lies-bleeding. Hopeless. Regret pooled in his heart as a bush of rue. Of course they'd never understand, he's been knocked out so many times over this, never learning. They pushed his head forward and the red liquid swirled in the toilet water as he struggled to breathe. Every rose has its thorn, he supposed.

Friendship? Romance? Ha, They spat. You wouldn't know either of those things if you tried, flower boy.

The words still echo in his mind today.

---

The flowers are the only ones that understand, do not give into the temptations, he tells himself. But when this boy, David, bright and brimming with humanity, stumbles upon him that fateful day, he does not stop. He trails behind him like a dog, begging for the last scrap of sandwich you cannot finish. He's a walking delphinium - fun, joyful, big hearted. Attached. And Aaron can't help but feel strange, there isn't a flower to this feeling, he doesn't understand. He's growing upon him like ivy vines, trapping him.