Forget Me Not

The earth is damp beneath their feet. She doesn’t know why she meets with him, but she does. He doesn’t know why he’s trying to win her back again, but he tries. She knows that if he leaves forever, he takes everything she holds dear with him. He knows that she doesn’t want anything anymore.

The sex is awkward. The unsteady dark, the crooked light, the silence. She stares at the pine trees and stars overhead and wonders when it will be over, when she can get up, when she can cleanse herself and wash away every trace of his touch. She wants to emerge from the water pure and virginal; a shining husk turned silk.

Finally, he lies still. And she, in turn, lies there as he goes to the stream to contaminate the water she wanted for her own, and listens to seeds planting themselves inside her. The earth within her reach is cool to the touch and she prepares herself for what she knows must come.

When he returns there are flowers. Columbines litter the ground like drops of blood and wine. The air is tight, anxious. His lips are tight. His face is anxious. She holds flowers, and the first is an iris. It was the first flower he ever gave to her. I have a message for you.

Slowly, in return, he draws out his own flowers. She waits and watches as petals bloom from his fingertips, fall from his mouth, creating the language of flowers he painstakingly taught her.

His head is crowned with a thick garland. He plucks one of the flowers from his head and places the pink carnation between her thighs. I will always remember you.

But she is undeterred. She presses a spherical cluster of hydrangea blossoms against his chest. You are cold, conceited, heartless.

He touches her and leaves behind two asters, one behind each of her seashell ears. I share your sentiments. 

They wait, locking eyes, locking irises.

Finally, she takes up the black mulberry leaves and places one on her tongue and the other on his. I shall not survive you.

She closes her eyes and waits. When she finally looks up, everything is gone except for the sky and the stars, and the field of snowdrops spreading towards the horizon.

Snowdrops. Consolation, hope.

Ariana Ferrone is a fourth year undergraduate student majoring in English Literature and minoring in Creative Writing. She has been a part of Larry Garber's creative writing workshop, 2998E, as well as numerous writing courses such as The Fundamentals of Creative Writing and Short Story Writing. She is currently working on her thesis, a short story collection about magic, mythology, and transformation.