“Zinnia Girls,” by Gretta Adams: March 2025 3rd Place

It is hard, to watch the others with their beautiful lives. Girls as dainty as daisies being spun into gorgeous dreams, rich and vibrant. Girls with bracelets of camellia and zinnia, blessed at birth.

It is hard, to watch them when I know I will always be alone.

Like every other girl in this world, I was born with a thin bracelet of flowers circling my wrist, tattooed on my skin. Purple hyacinth, my flowers are. In the flower language, it means sorrow.

Sadness will be my only companion.

Even so, I try to be sweet, dainty. I wear white gloves, just high enough to hide my birthmark, just like the other girls. I giggle and laugh, wear jewelry and rose-pink blush. Yet some part of me knows that even hidden, my loneliness is still there, branded in my skin.

The more I watch them, girls and their picture-perfect boyfriends, the more jealousy burns through me. It is awful and green, green as the flower crowns placed upon their sweet heads.

Still, I endure my fate. The third wheel, the berry no one wants to eat. The lonelier I am, the more my jealous eyes burn.

Rejection is sharper than thorns.

I will never be perfect, will never be one of those camellia or zinnia girls. I will never be spun into a dream, will never taste honey as sweet as theirs. The anger, fury at the unfairness of it all, at the ink on my wrist and the curse it symbolizes, sears through my soul as I rip off my gloves.

And when I gaze at my wrists, the change feels natural. Impossible, yet matching the furious rose-red blood coursing through me.

In place of the purple petals that caused me so much pain, orange lilies dot my wrist in twisting, seething lines.

Orange lilies, the symbol of hatred.

Just as buds bloom into petals, so has my sorrow bloomed into rage.

And as the hate settles into me like rain on the hard ground, I feel more alone than ever.