i remember the seasons when the sun refused to yield its time to the moon; the sky’s blue expanse only broken by the snowcapped mountain peaks along the horizon, the earth beneath my feet softening to welcome the weight of my body as i pressed my flesh to Hers.
i would run through backyards and fields of flowers, wild and growing out from every crevice, yellow buds dotting the sea of green flowing past me with each stride.
a playground behind our house, a fence, sunflowers, and friends. i remember in those days how my imagination stretched out in front of me as infinite as the cosmos and as colorful as the aurora borealis that danced in the night sky.
*****
i remember watching a stranger, who the police later told my father was a danger at the playground, give a fistful of yellow flower buds and too much attention to a playmate on a Saturday afternoon. it felt like the brighter sun shone, the more insistent this stranger’s questions and body language became. the police told my father i was lucky it was only the man’s questions that were intrusive.
*****
in my twenties, i wanted men to give me flowers in the same way i had wanted my father to express the same affection and attention towards me that he gave to the priorities in his life: women, sports, dogs, Prince, the Sunday newspaper, talk radio, music. instead he would give me the Sunday comics section to read, silence, corners to stand in, creatively cruel forms of punishment, instructions to be back home when the street lights turned on, the bare minimum.
in my thirties, i learned buying myself flowers overfilled the voids i believed had no bottom to reach.
at 40, i walk through the door with my arms full of bouquets.
i spread wildflower seeds in the backyard and cast a watchful eye for blooms.
i cut stems, strip leaves, and place vases on every altar.
flowers for the girl who used the Alaskan summer sky as a projector for her imagination,
flowers for the mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, queers, and atypicals who desired love but were given danger, silence, dysfunction, and suppressed emotions as fertilizer instead.
*****
today, i write love letters for my sons to read after the borealis has come to take me to the next phase of my journey.
“spread wildflower seeds so i can always find my way back to you.”
“may every bloom help you remember that my love for you is always unfolding and expanding.”
i leave them instructions for how to find me in the ether.
“you’ll need a white candle, a glass of water.”
“come through the door with your arms full of bouquets, lilies & sunflowers & dahlias & peonies are favorites, but surprising me with your selections will delight my spirit just as much.”
“cut the stems, strip the leaves, and place a vase on the altar for me, as you watched me do for them.”
tomorrow i’ll plant some flowers.
flowers for who i was
flowers for who i am now
flowers for who i’ll be after i’ve changed forms
flowers for the pain i absorbed silently
flowers for what can’t be alchemized
flowers for birthing new foundations
flowers for liberation
flowers wild and growing out from every crevice, blossoming in fields of technicolor dreams for me and you and them made real.
