Always, Orchids

I keep orchids
where your shadow used to fall.
They drink my silence,
bloom in borrowed light.

Their petals bruise with color,
soft lies of beauty,
proof that something
can live after it’s dead.

I water them with memory,
with words you never kept.
Each flower opens
like another goodbye.

They never ask for you.
They never forgive.

They just bloom—
over the grave of us.

Always.