L'esprit de l'escalier

He wanted to give her an Arbutus
After he failed all his college literature classes.
But he had read her Victorian novels, So he knew that
Flowers held a language leading the way straight into a beloved heart.
So he bought the birdsfoot trefoil
And tried to find a “love lies bleeding”
But expected such things were only an Irish myth.
He would write her a message
In a language they both had never learned.
He should of known that when she decorated
With those striped carnations
That what he thought was theirs
Just simply wasn’t there for her
He wished walking down the flights of her apartment
That he never offered her peach blossoms
When she decided to live alone
Felt stupid for reading Victorian novels that only made half sense,
He only ever read them for the end
He thought of his favorite adventures
If he was Ulysses he’d stay with the lotus eaters
And at the bottom step he sighed
And wished he would have just gotten roses.