They don’t sell them in the store anymore,
she told me one day, when the ache in my
chest wasn’t quite so bad. And they were
our favorite. She didn’t mean anything by
it—one of those conversation fillers that
don’t mean much to anyone. Unless you’re
the kind of person where anything means
everything, all the time. A blessing and a
curse and a garden all to myself. This wasn’t
what the promised land was supposed to look
like. I’m not supposed to be here, alone, with
a packet of seeds that say I can grow back love
in 75 long, lonely days.
Tia Cowger is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University with minors in Creative Writing, Studio Art, and Entrepreneurship. At twenty-eight years old, she’s still trying to decide what she wants to be when she grows up. Currently, she enjoys working with her hands in areas such as gardening, painting, quilting, pottery, and poetry.