A Metaphor

pov: the flower I felt bad about throwing away

They tore me out under the sun I bloomed for. “Plucked” me, they say. Chose me. Fingers soft, voice cooing- like I was a gift meant for them to find. A decoration.

Now I sit “pretty” in a “pretty” vase. A porcelain prison.

I was wild once. Windblown. Dirt caked. Roots deep and defiant. In the face of insignificance, I bloomed. I wasn’t meant for living rooms and spare glances. I was meant to grow where no one was looking. To exist without permission.

But they saw me. That began the end. “You’re too lovely to be left out here.” As if love is measured in containment. As if admiration justified execution.

The water is stale. The air is still. My petals curl at the edges, rot of the unwrought. But they sometimes say I’m beautiful. They smile at my decay.

Call it grace.

I sit here, a slow death in curated stillness, held in tepid water and delusion. They think they ‘saved’ me. They think they have done me a kindness.
I soften, collapse inward, buckle under the weight of being looked at.

They love me most now, now that I don’t take anything. I remain still. I don’t grow. I remain. “Looked so pretty, I loved it immediately.”

They call it love. The shroud they throw over every selfish act. As if it’s not theft. As if it’s not violence, just-

well arranged. Well spotted. Well done. Accomplished. Decorated.

I want to rage through the porcelain. I want to tell them I wasn’t theirs to keep. But I am a flower. Flowers don’t get to rage.

They rot. Beautifully.

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