// flower by ryn d. //

it was just a flower.

not even a blooming one.

it was dried up, and it was withered.

it was discolored. perhaps once it had been

pink or white or yellow.

but now if you were to try to describe it

you'd have to say it looked something similar

to stale, cold old tea, left out in the rain.

it was just an old flower.

but it was a flower

that caught my eye.

it was standing a little above

all the others in the bouquet.

like, even though she was far too old

she was hoping, just hoping, to catch

a whift of a beautiful summer wind

in her wildest dreams

even be carried away in his arms

another meadow, another summer

another life.

but of course

it had long been trapped in a foggy vase

never ever to breath that again.

someone took that away from her.

and as i came closer to her

i realized

just how very young 

she had been.

petals

so soft and delicate 

untouched 

underneath the wrinkled skin.

i could imagine how she must have blossomed

before she was broken.

how she must have danced before

someone came along and snapped

her long, slender leg.

how she must have stood on point so tall

a little above all the others

laughing 

her graceful arms twirling to the wind's

deep, passionate song.

and, i wondered, how she felt when she realized

as she fell limp in a stronger one's hand

that her beauty

had betrayed her

if she thought to herself 

she should have hidden it, amongst the tall grass.

and if

as she gasped her last when the door closed out her world

if she tried to warn her sisters

"though the world knows us for our beauty

don't let them know your own"

"for it is all you have

and all i had"

i wonder how she felt when her agile limbs

fell weak and damp.

when someone touched every inch of her 

helpless, sweet innocence

and smelled away her sweet perfume

for his own immediate pleasure.

on a whim, without thought he'd done this

because her beauty had pleased his eye

her youth, her blooming charm.

and with that, with one touch

ended that for her forever.

dunked in cold water in a hard, glass cup

and placed in the center of a dark table

her dying beauty for all eyes to watch.

when her lover, the wind's song, was beat out of her chest

by the suffocating cloud of indoors.

then how she felt when she was spilled and forgotten

eventually noticed and tossed amongst all the others

who'd lived and died just as her.

sad, hanging heads. she stood a little taller.

the second half of the last note she ever sang

still inside her.

one petal

cracked but facing the sky

as if she was caught mid-dance.

her face

still longing to feel the wind.

her beauty blossoming in a new way

from broken pieces had formed 

knowledge

regret

wisdom

humility.

her tears had fallen for lost love

injured dance and quieted song.

her heart had angered for the selfishness

of the hand who'd took what was her's.

but now her life

spoke the words of the world.

her story

tells us the way of humanity.

and her death warns us

of how we shall choose to live.

by my sister Ryn