Author: Bella Valdez --- Flowers melded across the scene and filled the very room we stood in Their edges pulled and blurred across one another until there was no end or beginning I thought of those first few flowers that were painted Alone in a vibrancy of brightness and possibilities Their edges only seeped into each other Like how ours had always been From when we first shared a smile in the nervousness of youth We were inseparable Our words mingled Our actions, likes, and interests blurred together until there was no end or beginning But now our edges have unseeped from each other Like the addition of new lilies pulled us farther apart with their leaking paint I have always tried to have us remain those inaugural flowers Our paint still mingled even as our edges spread apart Watering us with visits and calls from across a country But the air of the northeast has always been unforgiving to life And you’ve blossomed in the sun of an arid land Maybe it is not the addition of other lilies that pull our paint apart But you who has spread and grown as time allows you the the room to move I only hope as the lilies fill in around us Our edges will never fully part And you’ll leave your stain embedded in my soul