9/

She scatters daisy petals one by one and repeats the children’s rhyme. She loves me, heart palpitations. She loves me not, a stone in her stomach, a knot in her throat. The sun is setting; across town there’s a wedding and six months prior she circled no on the card stock RSVP. Old taste of obsession stale on her tongue, a new mantra crescendoes with the last petal’s fall. She spins the stem between her fingers and finally admits: it’s not love, it’s limerence.