the day the flowers died- modeled off of "A Smile to Remember"

I had flowers and they sat pretty and proud

in the vase on the table next to my bed

reminding me of the truth in gesture and

you, always trying, wanting the world

yet nothing at all, you say "smile,"

in so many words-- more like "smile for me": it's different

to smile for someone than it is to smile just to smile.

but the flowers sucked up all that powdered water and dried up rather quickly while

I let go of choosing for a little bit because I couldn't

decide in my state of such childlike intensity.

you, poor soul

wanting to be loved, choosing the next best thing,

like a flower saying pick me pick me

why don't you pick me?

and then you would disappear, to keep the distance, and it was the

strangest distance I ever felt

one day the flowers died, the whole bouquet,

they drooped over the side of vase, their

petals still attached to the pistil,

and when I realized they were no longer lovely I picked off the petals

one by one saying He loves me He loves me

Not

Charles Bukowski- "A Smile to Remember"

we had goldfish and they circled around and around in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes covering the picture window and my mother, always smiling, wanting us all to be happy, told me, 'be happy Henry!' and she was right: it's better to be happy if you can but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn't understand what was attacking him from within. my mother, poor fish, wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a week, telling me to be happy: 'Henry, smile! why don't you ever smile?' and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the saddest smile I ever saw one day the goldfish died, all five of them, they floated on the water, on their sides, their eyes still open, and when my father got home he threw them to the cat there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother smiled