by Grace Pappadellis ’29 on March 19, 2026
Portfolio - Poetry
The flowers that sit on my desk,
die when I go home.
They were once effervescent, lurid, plump.
The water is absorbed and the contents grow shriveled.
Their beauty will forever be stored in the softness of my insides.
I tear up when I see the bouquets, swiftly carried through the swinging doors,
I squint in the sunlight, it is hurtful but is wondrous,
it’ll melt the snow, and the winter will die, all the same.
Where are the flowers so effortlessly being carried to?
I wish to inhale, let their sweetness, their clarity, infiltrate me, assuage my bitterness.
I want them in my room, at my bedside, the first sign of life as I wake.
The flowers I once had were only temporary, unlike the statues they leave behind, vestiges of color and lucidity.
My tears are like petals, I wish they radiated the same.
There’s courage in being a flower, you exist without knowledge of what you leave behind, but you embolden my belief in seeking a similar blush,
a parallel passion I felt when I once received you.