Dandelions From Nowhere

           Lady Liberty is dying. Slowly, she sinks into the harbor bit by bit, vines strangling her
throat, choking her as she stares serenely into nothingness. I used to envy her. We’re both ghosts,
looking down onto the civilization we abandoned.

           It didn’t used to be that way. I remember when this city was shiny and beautiful. When
lights poured from the skyscrapers like spools of gold. When New York buzzed like a hive of
millions upon millions of bees.
           Now, the sky is barren and empty. The blue mocks me. When the bombs fell and the
smoke choked out the sun, I used to wish for the smallest patch of sky. A symbol of hope. None
came. Now, much, much later the world is gilded in cerulean. Yet no one to enjoy it with.
           Just me and Liberty.
           Alone in the middle of everything.
           Did you know that she’s made of copper? She used to be so shiny and polished, but now
she’s faded to an ancient aging green. Maybe someday I’ll help her scrape off all the oxidation
and rust so she can finally be beautiful again.
           Not that there’s an “us” anymore. Or a them. Just me. Me and Liberty. Liberty who isn’t
even mine.
           They never talk about the loneliness, y’know? The pit in your heart that chokes out your
voice into nothing. They glorify being the survivor, but what after? It’s just you and Liberty in an
empty shell.
           Like the pieces of sea glass I sometimes find when I walk around the shore. I'll hum the
old songs I used to love to play. My friends said my Mitski repertoire was scary.
          “My love, mine all mine, I love, mine all mine.”
            That is the lyric, right?
            My legs swing over the awning of the street. I catch a couple wanderers strolling
aimlessly. I call ‘em “Lost Ones” for a reason. They never seem to have a purpose, just softly
shuffling around, the moss crawling up their cracked flesh, warped flowers blooming where their
eyes used to be.
            They aren’t violent, they aren’t even really alive. I do find it eerie how they speak,
though. Teetering the line between insentient monster and heartbreakingly human. One time I
saw one that almost looked like my mother. I stopped to stare at her, and for a single moment she
turned to look at me with her flowering sunflower eyes..
            It’s June again. Not that anyone cares. The dandelions are puffing into clouds of feathers
that sail the sky. It’s comforting to know that something will outlast me.
            I can hear Liberty laugh. She knows that one day the dandelions will die too, and I will
still be left all alone until she sinks beneath the harbor and the city crumbles around us and the
world fades to nothing at all.
            It will just be me. Counting my Junes and singing to the vastness of space. Wishing on
Dandelions that don’t grow anymore.

            Dandelions from Nowhere.