i want a flower.
i tell my mommy,
i beg and plead,
pretty pretty please?
i'll care for it and water it
and my garden is so empty
without flowers,
please mommy,
just one?
i am five years old and
mommy says i'll have one.
she has to care for it first,
help it grow,
so that my little hands won't break it
before it's strong enough.
i watch the flower grow,
bigger and bigger,
and i have never felt
more excited.
excitement fades to fear
when mommy tells me bad news;
little flower is sick
and will be hard to care for.
i'm too young to understand
but i've wanted this flower
more than anything else,
and i pinky promise
i'll always take care of it,
no matter what it looks like.
mommy tells me a few weeks later
that the flower has died.
i spend days crying for it
even though it was never mine;
i never held it,
never loved it.
i'm still too young to understand
why she took it away.
two years later,
mommy gives me another flower.
i have outgrown gardening
and i refuse it, i don't want it,
but there is no return policy.
i hate this flower
because it isn't the right one —
why did it live
when the other was killed?
but i am still
too young, too young, too young.
i will not know it
for years to come,
but when my flower died,
my mommy became
a monster.
—i do not have a baby brother.
8/31/17
