“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.”
Vicki Harrison

He awoke when the moon was high and golden, a contrast to the wickedness of the dark that so surrounded it. Even a man like Poet knew that thieveries were almost always better and easier accomplished when the lights were dim, and the figures of shadows that still remained were misshapen and starved from the lightlessness.
He’d been rather experienced in stealing, but never stealing something so precious. Roses; a real rose, an honest to God rose. One that came from seeds that you could barely buy anymore, petals that felt like satin when you laid your fingers on them, stems with the jagged thorns that wrecked your threatening hands.
This rose . . . this rose was real.
The adverts he’d managed to see from his staggering place told that the artificial roses were better. They’d made them back in 2560, when the growing craze for artificial flowers had skyrocketed and the technology made with them had grown in complexity. Artificial roses, the spokesperson shouted, would be the best thing since sliced bread. With real bladders of rosewater that kept the silk petals hydrated and smelling clean, and thornless stems that felt soft, like felt, in a way.
But they weren’t alive.
The real thing had become so precious, so minimally sought after, that the only way Poet knew to get them was by stealing.
So, in the dead of night, after barely fifteen minutes of sleep, he dressed and took the old hoverboard model to the nick of his armpit. Ten years on the streets. Two years of a marriage. And then here he was, twenty-two years old, fearful of something that a child would be fearful of.
Getting caught.
Perhaps he was too exhausted to have it cross his mind at the time. All the tossing and turning within his sleep, and not a thought of what he would do if the family caught him. There was no getting out of it, then.
Only the rich had real roses.
Perhaps there had been a reason behind why the thought had only occurred to him when he was halfway to the Luelle family household already.  He didn’t know it.
His hoverboard whirled in uneven drags underneath his feet, oftentimes dropping a couple inches underneath him before the magnetic sensors brought themselves back to life again, but he’d learned to get used to that.
Poet slowed the board down to a gentle slowing point as he hit the ground. His fingers swathed over the off button, enclosing the board to a park that wouldn’t budge unless he stood on it again and directed it quickly away. The sleep that clogs his eyesight and the headache that throbs behind his temples doesn’t help the process of kneeling over, ducking underneath ten million trees, evergreens that scraped white marks against his flesh, to the thing he could’ve been looking for.
The rosebush.
It was a fresh bush, pristine, towering over Poet’s immedient height with golden leaves held like presents on a Christmas morning. If you were to avulse the fresh leaves away from their placement, you’d find the roses underneath, crimson and covered in a sheet of dew. The thorny stems underneath them holding them towards your hands.
Poet’s fingers pulled themselves towards the rose, uncovered by the encasement of leaves that so surrounded it. Silken petals brushed against his skin. He’d never felt something so . . . so real. Not like this.
With a soft grunt, he broke the rose and it’s halved stem free of its bush. The sheet of dew came crumbling off onto his hands, but he wouldn’t have noticed either way. Because almost as soon as he’d cracked the rose towards his chest, pausing only a moment to admire the beauty of it, the door to the mansion beside the garden opened to reveal two figures of shadow. Unfortunately, the shadows themselves seemed to have owners.
“You - you’re the one that’s been stealing the flowers, you- you!”
The larger, much taller man in front of Poet had begun to storm towards him. Perhaps the loss of words onto his tongue had been caused by the simplistic shock and disappointment of not, in fact, seeing a gang of thugs snatching up his flowers for a quick buck, but instead seeing somebody as average appearing as Poet. Perhaps that was what had sent Mr. Luelle up a wall, what caused him to grab Poet by the collar and slam him to the mud, ruining his clothes in seconds.
Poet didn’t bother asking.
“You little - Mariette, are you seeing this? This is the little  --   that’s been stealing our flowers!” Mr. Luelle stood overhead a dizzy, regretful Poet, hands balled into angry fists. “Quill!”
The second shadow in the doorway seemed to freeze at the name, before slowly stepping out into the dim moonlight. His hair was inky, messy with curls that played down towards his eyes. Despite being surrounded by tired circles of grey, Quill’s eyes were just as mysterious and interesting as the rest of him was. You could get lost in the universe in his eyes, and Poet almost did, before Mr. Luelle moved towards his son and away from his captured.
Not that he would be able to move, if he wanted to.
Angry whispering came from Mr. Luelle, who didn’t seem to be having any of his son’s calming reassurances. He growled, finally, and stormed back inside, slamming the door shut behind him.
Quill met Poet’s eyes for a solid moment before his hand reached out towards his, “Here.” There is a minute where the world is quiet, the only words one might be able to hear were the angry whispers from Mr. Luelle to his son, the comfortable, reassuring whispers that Quill had such responded with. Even now, the crickets were quiet. The only noises were the voices, the wind, and the painful ringing behind Poet’s temples.
Finally, Mr. Luelle gave an angry grunt, storming from his place outside back in. Although the mansion door was far away, it didn’t take a genius to hear the promident slam that it gave when it closed.
Quill walked forward, holding out a hand for the other male.
“Here.”
Poet took it without hesitation. Their eyes locked onto one another for the longest time, a universe building in both fields of visions. Despite it, no words could be exchanged. Not yet.
Quill’s spare hand held the stolen rose that his father had thrown from Poet’s fingers to the dirt. Despite the stem being muddy, it still remained pristine. He held it to Poet, locking his fingers around the petals. But not a word was said.
Despite the longing to take it, Poet kept his hands at his sides, fingers trembling from the cold and the shock. “I’ll pay for the flowers.”
He couldn’t pay for the flowers, even if he wanted to.
“Take it.”
“I don’t-”
“It’s not difficult,” Quill cut him off before he had a chance to finish his sentence, “whoever’s getting these flowers must be a lovely woman.”
Poet’s ears warmed, “I’m not sure-”
“I’d like to meet her,” Quill stood up a bit taller, although he couldn’t do much. He didn’t appear anything over 5’6, at most, “Whoever’s getting my father’s flowers has to be an extraordinary person for me to accept it.”
“I’ll pay for them, please, and I’ll leave you alone,” Poet’s heart rammed in his throat like a caged animal, hungry and ready for escaping.
“No need,” Quill adjusted his jacket and smiled a bit, “Take me to her.”
There was so utterly no way to reason with the man, for he’d made up his mind long beforehand. Poet swallowed his pride and took the flower from Quill’s outstretched fingers, pulling the brambles away from the garden walls so he’d be able to leave again. The gates that surrounded the mansion seemed taller than they had just minutes before. Poet didn’t bother taking the hoverboard, his stomach was jumping from adrenaline so much that he feared he might throw up if he stepped foot on anything but ground.
They walked in silence for what felt like a decade.
---
The cemetary was small. Too small. Visions of older and newer gravestones only went on for a little over half a mile. The ground beneath each stone is soggy with rainwater and splattered with mud, the writings on the newly placed iron stones much clearer, darker, than the older ones made of cobblestone. Painted iron gates, ones that appeared a beautiful gold, towered over the entrance of the place to block it away from the outside world. They were always open.
The cities had forgotten about the place.
“You’re meeting her in a graveyard?” Quill perked, “Interesting place to meet, isn’t it?”
Poet was quiet. The rose in his fingers had lost it’s dewiness.
“I suppose,” he finally muttered, his lips pursed.
The two wandered through mazes of gravestones; new and old, iron, gold, stone. Some faded, but the writing still legible from painstaking hours of re-carving and painting them, others were fresh. But the place was so old, the most recent gravestone couldn’t have been less than ten years old.
They came upon one towards the back of the gateways. Stone, build with the oldest material one could’ve gotten their hands on. The rough surface was unpolished and dry, sheltered by a plum tree that grew just behind the stone itself. Poet had always thought that the tree never grew fruit because of where it was growing.

DELANY ALANYA - MCGUIRE
2670 - 2691
BELOVED WIFE & DAUGHTER

Quill froze in place behind Poet, his throat tightening and his hands freezing in place. His voice caught in the back of his throat and stuck there like hot glue.
“Is that…”
Poet took the rose that he was holding and placed it at the roots of the gravestone. It piled on top of the others, all dead and starved of sunlight, rather well.
“I didn’t realize…” Quill whispered, his voice catching a bit.
“You wouldn’t have known,” Poet responded, his hands tucked together.
There is an eternity of quiet between them, a universe of silence that builds off of the gentle sounds of dripping rain and jagged breathing. A deep indigo hue that painted the world, black thoughts with red undertones that wouldn’t release. The understanding that, even after two years, Poet hadn’t been able to forget. Nobody would’ve been able to. Not her parents, not Poet, not her friends, nobody. But still, in the moment of grief that danced solemnly between Poet, Quill, and the measly stone before them with her inscriptions, the seconds between the two felt golden. If he would’ve been able to go back, he would’ve.
“I’m sure she was lovely,” Quill finally said, his hands crossing over behind his back.
“She was . . . she was more than that,” Poet ducked his head a bit, “She was a fighter.”
“How did she…?” Quill found himself unwilling to even mutter the word death.
“She was murdered,” Poet pursed his lips tighter together, “Two years ago. A gang of...of thugs took her off.”
“I’m so sorry…”
“There’s nothing we can do now,” Poet’s regretful words hadn’t lasted before catching again. But he hadn’t cried, not in a long time.
“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming.” Quill’s voice was stronger, the quote rolling from his tongue, “All we can do is learn to swim.”
And they locked eyes again. For a long time. The universe that built between them was lovely, and for once, a golden, happy pink.
Things felt warmer again.