“Flowers used to bloom here” – Nayana Nair

There is a wall of flowers before her.
She looks at it as if they are a softer kind of firework,
a firework in reverse,
the colors leaving the petals, crawling deep into itself,
leaving the color of the inevitable sad ending
that Nature always ends up falling for,
after a series of boys who lied to her about a forever
in their mellow green kisses.

A lesson on subtraction
for a girl trying to learn
about the reasons and the ways
a void like hers is created.