you must know life to see decay

He died in the spring.

On the day of his funeral, just as the day of his death, the sky was clear, single clouds floating by idly in sea blue skies. The sun was bright and its beam rained down upon them like spotlights, highlighting their drab black suits and Sunday best dresses that contrasted with the blooming of daisies and daffodils around them. Everything was alive and growing except for him.

He was so young was what the woman murmured beneath veils that concealed wet eyes and trembling lips. The men muttered about how it was such a waste that his life was taken before it had truly begun, and all their words fell on deaf ears as his parents stood by the top of his coffin, watching their baby boy be lowered into the ground.

He was your friend. Tall, alarmingly so, for such a shy boy. He had always tried to hide behind his shaggy hair and his shoulders had always tilted inwards, as if he were trying to make himself smaller than everyone else. It was only with you that his shoulders began to relax and straighten themselves back, at least a little bit.

You loved him. Of course you did; it was hard not to fall for his boyish charm and his shy smiles that made his eyes crinkle. Those smiles had always been yours and you collected them like paper planes in the classroom, folding down the corners neatly and tucking them away for safekeeping. His smiles were your favourite and you basked in their beauty each time he graced you with their presence.

During spring was when you would both collect flowers and make daisy chains in the fields. His soul was old, you told him often, connected to the earth since the beginning and holding on with clutching fingers. He was more at ease with Mother Nature than he was with other people but you were the exception, invited into his world of pollen seeds and flower crowns long before you understood the implications of how precious his acceptance was. It was only as you both grew older than you began to understand how trusting of your presence he was.

He had called you flower, had tucked strands of hair behind your ears and kissed your lips softly, hesitantly, his large hands cupping your face loosely as if he were afraid to break you. He couldn't, not until now, and at the time your eyes had fluttered closed and you breathed in his familiar scent of cut grass and warm sun kissed skin.

Even in death he was covered in flowers, returned to the earth as his soul had always longed for. His soul was old, you reminded him often, bound in magic older than time and connected more deeply with the earth than was possible to explain. He could make flowers bloom just by touching their shy petals, could walk through a field and make the crops grow even during a drought. He had shied away from your words, head ducking to hide a shy smile and you smiled in return, reaching out to ruffle his soft hair. You only told the truth, you told him, and he reached out to wrap your hand in his.

You imagine him, dressed in his best suit, the deep blue one with the silver tie that shone when the light caught it right. He had worn it to your sister's wedding, your date for the event, and you had stared in wonder when he arrived. He was so beautiful and he never knew it.

You had both danced that night, not on the dance floor with everyone else, but privately amongst the stars. There was a stretch of field that led to a pond and of course you both ditched the florescent lights and drunken celebratory cheers to run towards the water, flowers brushing against your ankles as you flew through the grass. He had held your hand the entire time, grasping it firmly in his, and you had laughed into the night, your soul free. His smile was directed towards you and you had taken his face and kissed him, no hesitation in your movements as you brought his face closer to yours.

He was still smiling even as your lips met.

You miss the feeling of his lips against yours. You watch as his coffin is covered, his body, dressed in his best suit, lying amongst silk cushions as white as his skin. You had placed a flower between his laced fingers and placed a daisy chain atop his ruffled hair like a crown. You know he would have wanted to be covered in more, decorated like a florists shop, but you know it would only smother him further. He was already suffocating within the coffin; you don't want him smothered by his flowers too.

The wood of the coffin is lost beneath the dirt and you think about planting seeds into the soul so that his grave will always be covered in various floras. You think he would like that; that each time spring arrives, his grave will blossom and rebirth the earth's prettiest creations.

You only wish he would blossom too.

His grave is covered, the earth refilled where it had been disturbed. He's beneath you now, returned to his rightful home, and as the crowd begins to wane you stand where you have stood all day, your hands clasped solemnly in front of you. Your eyes still watch his grave even as the sun lowers and casts its golden glow across the cemetery, basking you in warmth similar to his soul, to his smile.

You miss him.

There's an emptiness inside you that you can't begin to explain and you want to swallow seeds and wait for them to bloom in your stomach, to inhale them and allow flowers to grow in your lungs. You would rather suffocate with their beauty nestled inside you than leave his grave and return to your house, cold and alone without him.

Your cheeks are wet and you wonder if your tears alone could drench the earth and make him bloom again, but Mother Nature has taken his hand and taken him back home and you can't escape that. You wonder if you offered your hand out to him if he would reach back to clasp it, let go of natures hand and come back to you.

There are daisies by his grave and you sit and you pluck the prettiest ones, not counting how many you take as you split their stems and lace them together. You keep picking them and splitting them until the sun is kissing the earth and you have sewn a daisy chain big enough to dress his grave. If his headstone were here you would decorate it with a crown but for now you lay the daisy chain atop the disturbed earth and pull at it until it forms the perfect circle.

You touch the earth, your fingers covered in dirt; it reminds you of how often you both become covered in grass stains, fingers coated in soil reaching out for each other to paint the earth across each other's cheekbones as if you were both preparing for war. Perhaps you both were.

You breathe in the smell of him, of cut grass and sun kissed soil. You look beneath you, towards his grave where you know he is watching you. You tell him how his soul was old and as your fingers dig into the dirt, you promise to wait for him to return to you.