Carnation

On Valentine’s Day in middle school, if you were a boy, you could buy a girl a carnation in the lobby. For five dollars you were given a singular stem, some pink and semi-wilting, others red and barely past a bud. Under the fluorescent light beams and stares of fellow 7th grade boy desire you pass over a crinkled bill into a PTA mom’s palm. She flashes you a Mary Kay smile and gushes with delight as she stuffs your hard earned allowance into a cash box. Good boy, this is how it starts. You tuck the carnation into the frayed mesh side pocket of your Jansport backpack, shuffle across the laminated tile and slip it in the sleeve of the girl’s locker.

If you were a girl you could receive a carnation from a boy who wore a football jersey that was all at once too big and too small. The other girls with boyfriends wore their beloved’s jerseys on Friday game days. The fabric billowing over their petite frames as they travelled in a massive purple pack through the halls. You haven’t been elevated to girlfriend status yet so you wear your own clothes. You imagine what the fabric would feel like on your shoulders. How heavy or light it would be. Would the smell of his mother’s detergent last long enough to linger on you? Would the smell of you last long enough to linger on him?

You find the carnation tucked in your locker, vibrant and bold against the worn down and beige. You know the sender’s identity from a whisper at lunch. You turn over the tag tied around the stem and in the space for a note he’s only written your name.

On the bus, you place the carnation down on a veined vinyl seat. For a moment the carnation rests in on a frayed garden of plucked polyurethane foam pricked at by anxious girls like you. Before you can position your backpack on your lap and slide beside the thing that shows you were chosen, a girl shuffles past you and sits on your proof. You try to salvage the stem from beneath her jeans but she swivels, further grinding the petals into a burgundy paste. You tell yourself it’s all an accident, but then again she’s the same girl who told you,

You’re going to hell

When you kept your mouth closed around the word God during the pledge of allegiance. You tell her,

My dad says I don’t have to

And she tells you,

Well, then he’s going to hell too

She stands up and brushes flower pulp off the back of her jeans. You retrieve the bent stem with a bobbing crumpled head. The paper tag hangs off its neck and you remove it like you would the collar of a dog your parents have just put down. Something you can rub your thumb against and find sparse hairs nestled between the stitches, proving something dead was once real.

You sit beside the girl with your body pivoted toward the aisle. You toss the carnation by your feet and pulverize it into the bus ground along with the rumble that surrounds you.

You’re 26 and you sort of believe in god and if there’s a heaven or hell you have no idea as to where your father went. You’re still out looking for proof that you’re real. You hold onto birthday cards, scribbled notes, and checks your grandmother has written you. Impulsiveness was once the only thing you had to prove you existed. You already knew your name but wasn’t it a relief when someone spelled it out for you? Today, you walk in the cold and the sun finds your face. You remember you are warm.