Daisies

You really dislike the daisies. It's spring now, a season that is usually happy for other people. The birds are back, chirping and building their nests. Trees and the ground are covered in fresh new growth. The flowers are starting to pop up and bloom, the snowdrops, dandelions, cherry blossoms, and those star-of-David's. It's the daisies that irritate you most. They're too cheerful, too gaudy in their white and yellow, pushing up through the cracks in concrete, ruining the sidewalk. You can't help but stomp on them every time you come across them when you're walking to work.

Maybe you stomped on them because it was easy. Like crumpling a piece of paper, like breaking a glass figurine, like erasing a sentence that you had typed up. Maybe you stomped on them because it was the one thing in life that you felt like you could control. You couldn't control much, not even what you ate due to your small paychecks. Control was crucial, that's what you had learned throughout life. There were the people who had it, and those who did not. You are among the latter, and you hate it.

Maybe you hate what they represent. Daisies, in the language of flowers, mean simple love. But you know better. You know that love is never simple. It's complicated, it's a ball of tangled strings that slowly, untangle over time. It's a can of worms, a nest of snakes, a lovely impossible. Then again, you wouldn't know, you've never had love. There's never been that sort of click, that connection. You can't remember the last time you were even asked out. You associated love with those daisies, an annoyance, something everyone, but you always had. Love had never been easy for you, in the end, all the people you've loved, have left and were gone. They were stomped out of your life like fate, just like how you stomped the daisies.

You know that nothing is simple. Nothing is free, nothing lasts forever, no one lasts forever. You've lost a lot of people, your entire family is gone. Your mother left a long time ago, she didn't even say goodbye. Your father left more recently, dead from a drunken car accident. Your sister turned distant after she got married, you never see her anymore, you don't know if you have nephews or nieces. You don't know if you have any other family. So now there's just you. You in your empty apartment with it's echoing, hollow space. Sometimes you scream, just to hear the echo, to pretend that someone else is there with you.

You've always been alone, you've always stuck to the darkness. That's why you prefer winter, to spring. You feel like winter, no matter the season. You feel dead inside, cold, you don't exactly have anything to live for. In winter everything's darker, plants are withered, everything is cold, and wet after it's snowed. Life feels dead, empty, like you could just disappear one day and no one would notice, no one would care. You've considered ending it many times, you've come close, but you've never followed through. You're a coward, just like everyone always said you were. That was one of the things that they would yell at you at school, along with a lot of other, worse names. The names that you would have yelled at you while you were being punched, humiliated.

Sometimes you lie in bed, just listening to the sounds of the city around you. The cars, the sirens, the yells and the laughter, the music. The sheets are cool and the air is cooler, and the bed is large. But it is empty, your room is empty, the apartment- empty, the world feels empty. Lacking, somehow. But you don't do anything to stop it, you just lie there, and you listen. Soon though, even that fades away, and there's nothing.

You're walking to work again. A day just like every other. Except, something, somehow, feels different. The sunshine seems to be creeping into your bones, filling you with a strange, new warmth that causes the corners of your mouth lift in a small smile, that hasn't happened in a long time. You smell some amazing scents, fresh pastries and food from the cafes and restaurants. Perfumes and flowers from the little shops and boutiques you pass. There's a new bounce in your step, something that makes you wave back when someone says 'good morning' to you. You can hear the music of the street buskers, and occasionally stop to drop a few dollars into their hats or guitar cases.

The world around you isn't a mindless blur of gray like it used to be. It wasn't black and white, it wasn't soundless, scentless. There was color now, there were smells, and sounds, and life. And when you look down, you see a resilient daisy, peeking out from the nearby stretch of grass. You walk over to it, and instead of stomping on it, instead of grinding it into the dirt, this time: you just look. There's something beautiful about it's simplicity, about the tiny collection of dewdrops on it's tiny white petals. About the little yellow, pollen center, about the way it looked up at the sun, worshiping it's source of life. Like a little follower of some bright god. There was something about it that makes you think that it's smiling up at you.

You used to dislike daisies. It's spring now and the sunlight is warm. The birds are back, chirping and building their nests. Trees and the ground are covered in fresh new growth. The flowers are starting to pop up and bloom, the snowdrops, dandelions, those sweet smelling star-of-David's. It was the daisies that used to irritate you most. But now, instead, they're your favorites. They brighten up your day with their cheerfulness, their simple beauty. So now, when you see daisies, instead of stomping on them, trampling them into the dirt. You carefully pick them, and tuck them behind your ear. And you smile.