Red Roses

My mother used to have a jar of 

rose petals from every bouquet 

my father would give her. The fragrance 

would linger from the kitchen to the living room.

That was the earliest memory I had of love.  

 

As most beautiful things do,

they shrivel up and die. 

But my mother would pluck the petals one by one 

and drop them into a glass jar. 

 

Now I can’t remember the last time I saw 

the red hue on the kitchen counter

or dying on the round table that centers the room. 

It’s been years since I’ve been back home, 

but I do know the jar no longer has red roses. 

 

The glass jar has been empty as mold grew instead of love,

a consuming feeling that faded into a sickly white substance. 

Is that what happens when love grows old?

I wonder when the flowers stopped showing up so frequently.

 

I wonder when the flowers stopped showing up at all. 

Aren’t roses supposed to be something to show your love?

The last time I saw flowers on the dining table was 

when I bought flowers for my mother. 

 

It was her birthday. 

They were yellow lilies of some sort. 

They were not red. Nothing in it was red. 

Those flowers meant something else. 

Maybe it's just another pretty thing to die. 

They did not make it into the glass jar to replace 

those dead roses from years ago. 

 

Now I sit in my own dining room, 

watching the roses my roommate got from her boyfriend wilt and die. 

The water turned green and slimy a week ago. 

Sometimes I wonder if it's better to let flowers shrivel up and die,

to be put in a glass jar, 

or to let the water turn into a sickly muck with a stench that 

no longer smells of love. 

 

He would buy her flowers twice a month, 

just for the water to turn sour again and again. 

And yet they still called it love. 

 

I think I might be jealous 

because that is one thing they have and I don’t. 

 

What does it mean to want something you can’t have, 

to be jealous, a pessimist. 

Maybe it’s because I haven’t received flowers yet. 

 

I’ve only now had my first love at the age of twenty-one. 

What does it mean when my boyfriend and I 

have only been together for a month and a half 

and I haven’t been given flowers yet? Maybe I’m expecting 

too much, but maybe I would like to have flowers of my own. 

 

Flowers just because. Flowers for I love you. 

We haven’t even said I love you yet. 

How early is it to say I love you when 

I’ve already known him for so long?

 

Is it too early to want roses? 

Maybe I want roses like my mother’s. 

Roses I can dry myself to store in a glass jar forever. 

 

I talked to my mother last week. 

I have so many questions because I don’t know what any of this means. 

What does it mean when your best friend doesn’t like him? 

What does it mean when I bring him home for the first time? 

What does it mean…

 

I want to ask what it means 

when your husband forgets your anniversary,

your birthday, your Christmas gifts, 

your flowers. 

I want to ask if love really lasts forever, 

or if love dies out just as fast as it came.

 

What does it mean to have your first kiss at twenty-one years old, 

when it feels twenty-one years too late? 

She used to tell me that I will meet 

someone when the time is right. I hope this time is right. 

Don’t rush into anything too fast. Enjoy the little things early on before 

expecting anything too big. She tells me that love will feel like 

you never have enough time with that person, 

She’s right about that one.

 

If he loves you, he will show you. 

One day he’ll give you flowers of your own.