I hung the sunflower
from a piece of twine
in my wardrobe,
some months ago now.

Something once beautiful,
a gift from you to me,
a symbol of us,
together

and the happiness we found
in eachother
as we grew and bloomed
together.

So I hung it in the wardrobe
to preserve it.
To keep it. To admire it.
To cherish it for as long as we could.

And yet despite my attempts,
this sunflower’s petals
fell to the wardrobe floor,
it’s head shrivelling, wilting.

What could I do?
but leave it there
for days and weeks,
suspended amongst the clothes.

But the longer I left it,
unable to face
what I knew I had to do,
the worse this sunflower became.

We cannot restore
life into something
dead
and decayed.

I sharpened my shears and cut both
the thin twine of the sunflower,
and the thin twine holding us
together.

The dead sunflower hanging in my wardrobe
becomes the dead sunflower
lying amongst its own petals
on the wardrobe floor.

I am left to pick up the pieces
of what once was.
It was useless to try to preserve
when all flowers live, then die.