I bought flowers today that are the same color as the first flowers I ever received from my very first date. They are a beautiful burnt orange that fades into a darker orange.
I hung those flowers from my very first date on the mirror in the room I grew up in. They kept their vivid color even after death.
Ten years later, you made me destroy the flowers that didn’t do anything except force you to face that I had a past, that someone, somewhere loved me before, that I had an army of ex-lovers, memories and family that would die for me.
So ironic you made me destroy something was already dead. You were the only one keeping it alive, feeding it with your jealousy.
The thing you always failed to realize, is that the past and army of love that the flowers held were not stored in the flowers themselves. They were stored in my heart, something you would never be able to destroy, no matter how hard you tried.
You could take my photos, my prom corsage, my birthday cards. You could steal my hard drive, remove people from my social media, limit who I talked to. You could accompany to my storage unit from college and watch me throw out all of the relics of a past life as though I were your prisoner.
But you destroyed nothing.
You made no points.
All you did was destroy an exterior world that had no bearing on my love, past and relationships.
I bought flowers today that are the same color as the first flowers I ever received from my very first date. I remembered the life of the very first flowers ever given to me, 12 years later, as I walked through an ordinary store on an ordinary Saturday afternoon.
You destroyed the physical, but failed to destroy the spirit, the memories, the heart.
The flowers lived on, I lived on.
We kept our vivid color, even after you tried to destroy us.
