Peonies

Annual reminders of my failed marriage and one of the happiest days of my life.

Little bombs of love and loss.
Home and heartbreak.
My mom and my marriage.
The premature deaths that make up my life.

The heaviness of a peony’s bloom can sometimes outweigh its own stem.
I feel this in my bones.

I will always love these audacious explosions of beauty and perfume.
Despite and because they hold so much joy and pain.

Memories of my mama in the backyard in Washington.
Me wrapping individual stems in wet paper towels to deliver to friends at school.
So many ants.

My May wedding at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.
Conjoined twins, butterflies, and peonies, oh my.

I spent a year making handmade vases for every table. My closest friends from college helped me fill them with hundreds of stems of peonies the morning of my wedding. The flowers were delivered in boxes to my door by Norm from UPS, who would later deliver countless baby gifts from friends and em…