When she was a little girl, she called herself the flower queen.

Daisy chains for crowns, flowers painted on her face at every opportunity, buttercups under her chin, roses in jugs, flower plasters for when they pricked her skin.

She loves nothing more than flowers, butterflies and playing in the sun.

And she got older.

She was still just as pretty, still radiated sunshine.

It wasn’t thorns that pricked her skin, but needles.

No more flower plasters.

She didn’t get daisies and buttercups painted on her face at carnivals, put inked there in tattoo studios, along with skulls and punk rock mottos.

She didn’t pick petals from a daisy, love me, love me not, until she found her forever love, she looked around the nightclub, and pointed. In the morning, she’d dress quickly in tight jeans and a shirt, not bothering to kiss her prince goodbye, and tip toe out the door.

She was still just as pretty, just not as sweet.

But those who knew her said “the flower queen is still inside”.

When one too many needles picked her skin, and one of her one night princes was a little too much, and she hopped in her car to race away, delusions of warps in the road turned her car over the edge.

Crash, crunch, scream, bleed, silence.

The insides let out.

Inside the funeral home, as she was stitched and cleaned and dressed, prepared for her funeral, a bitter joke, even rotting flowers can still smell sweet.