Dead Flowers
It's not a flower, I lie to her; it's a plant in a pot.
Okay, she says. I watch her take the flower and put it beside her. And I am hoping that if she feels even less than ten percent of what I feel for her, she'll let the flower live - at least for a week.
How's the flower? I ask three days later. She says: Oh, they're dead. Sorry.
It's alright, I tell her. It really is. She is treating me to the movies. We sit, as always, side by side separated by two inches of laminated wood. The rest of our lives simplified in one small theatre. This is the way it will always be between us. One foot apart: no more and no less.