departed

the flower petals felt like rain,
falling with disorganized beauty.
the kind of beauty you can't stand to look at,
for fear that it will strike you.

do the flowers know they’ve been
ripped apart, their limbs thrown on the ground
without a care?
do they care?
or are they just happy to be included?

grateful to brush up against so many,
a symbol of
hope and
heartbreak and
horror and
happiness.

do they want to be a symbol?
their life cut short, their bloom cut off,
just so we can throw them on the ground.

wouldn’t they rather be in a field?
surrounded by others?
unremarkable.
passed by without a care.

is it better to be known or loved?
does peace-
and peace is what it’s all about-
come from importance or connection?

or do we take the flowers from their family
to give them a new one?
a proxy for people to pour their love into
in lieu of the one we wish it went to.

saying ‘i want you to have this beauty’
to elevate the ‘you’ and the ‘beauty’

a harmony between worlds
a singularity between moments.
a flower petal for the possibility to feel
a sign that the world will bloom.

they fall so we can rise.
and they rise so we can fall.