Stalked

To be followed home by a rose, to catch the scent of it, the sound of roots scuttling like clawed feet, the way it wilts on corners, dipping itself like a bird into the puddle, how it talks, uttering every love cliché, it’s whispering after you and you’re trying not to hear it. You prefer useful plants, not this song of rosewater, rosepetal jam, and when a passerby spots it, tries to pick it for herself, it just nods its head when she jumps back, putting her fingers up to her mouth, surprised by the thorn left in her skin; even when you speed up, it is waiting for you around the next corner, another bud on its stem, a trail of curled petals like snail confetti behind, and it’s telling you now that it’ll give up everything for you, that the minute it saw you, it knew, and you want to shout not to make such a scene, but the rose is curled round your leg now, and it’s saying it can’t exist without you, if no one looks at it, calls out its name, what will it be.