i. the late spring baptises the blossoms. i’m fourteen again, lying amidst aphids&cupping molehills with my palms. we choose to take a trip to the woods. shake the flowers to see its pollen scattering across the riverbed. reread the conspiracy against the human race&hope we don’t get hayfever. ligotti once thought: if he pulled the strings of his clown, he’d break free from his own. but i found out the hard way that it was false— you can’t cut strings with more strings.
ii. we’d be botanists if we knew how to name flowers with fear. fear is only cradled when beautiful. but honestly, do you think a lumberjack cares how green a tree is before hefting their axe? how it was already uprooted before it sang its last rustle with the wind? how the marigold was already plucked before it could tremble? in my hands i am spinning a highlighter like how history repeats itself. in the riverbanks of my head i am restless&dying. yet i try to pace myself anyway.
iii. now i only know you’ve got me dreaming of flowery language&flowery ways to meet my demise. determinism. fatalism. then finally resignation. i’d search for their meaning in dictionaries, only for you to tell me that i could find it everywhere. a tree’s roots can only grow downwards. when i witnessed the nebulae, i realised that the night’s purpose was its own fall. but i smile, regardless. i roll in the eroded soil despite the brewing thunderstorm. benatar says better never to have been, but we are. so let’s sing our last anthem of depeche mode under the stars with our pollinated lungs. let’s make this worth something.
Phoenix Tian is a 16-year-old Singaporean writer. She likes talking to herself.