Alex Dimitrov
There were days I didn’t go out and days I couldn’t remember. Sometimes I sat at my desk watching the trees outside blooming, as if we had nothing in common. They had the sun, I had the sun through a window. They were beginning, I was unsure what I was. Then one afternoon after an early drink I decided to get them — alive and understated, aware they were not the most beautiful flowers yet reassuringly strong. I don’t know how they gave the illusion of order. One that was impossible to find talking to friends, lovers, old colleagues; they did not talk back. The tulips. They merely filled the room, their purpose being to be loved for what they were, entirely by how I saw them. No struggle or epiphany. No work. And so I did. I loved them. I was envious I could not be them. Simple and so sudden. In a vase.