Letters I'll Never Send

Dear Wilted

Loving me is like watering a dead flower,

pouring hope into dry, brittle soil, 

watching for signs of green that never come. 

You press your hands into the earth, tender, careful,

as if I could bloom again, as if this husk could drink in the life you offer like rain.

You lean close, whispering warmth,

patience spilling from you in steady streams,

but my roots are silent, the stem hollow. 

 What once was alive is only memory now, a ghost of petals long faded, color drained. 

Still, you kneel there, tending a garden of loss, nurturing what can't return,

your hands soaked, hopeful,

until it's your own heart that wilts from loving something that will not grow.