In freshman biology
I recall learning about the
Food chain and
Natural selection.

I remember how seemingly
Unimportant
Most of the lessons were.
How we'd go home and only a
Tiny few of us would remember.

Most of us left it at the door.

But when the tiny few of us
Who were so used to taking things home
Tried to leave the pecking order at the door,

Everyone else remembered.

They remembered we were
At the bottom of that order,
The bottom of the chain.

And they wouldn't let us
Forget.

They wouldn't let us forget
That we were at the bottom,
And as they slammed us against whatever they chose,
That they were the ones
At the top.

I remember eighth grade.
Agricultural studies.
And I remember
The first time we planted a sapling.

And my teacher told us
That we were the sapling.
That middle school planted our roots
And now we would grow.

I've always wanted to ask her:
If a tree falls in a forest
Does anybody care?

Because we made plenty of sound.
The thing is, we didn't even get to be trees.
Trees are strong and durable. We?
We were but brittle branches.

Branches that got stomped on,
Crushed,
Swung around,
Smashed into things,
And at the end of the day attempted to gather all the pieces
To try again.

To go into a flock of wolves
Disguised as a harmless sheep.
We didn't like being wolves.
We weren't feral. At least, not at first.

Soon, the sticks wanted stones to break the tree's bones,
And I'm not saying it was right,
But it was how we felt!

More than anything,
We felt alone.

In a world so full of love,
We were being taught to hate.
Even still, some of us tried to leave that lesson
At the door. But a few of us?

A few of us didn't even make it that far.
We couldn't.
Under the weight of it all, we just collapsed.
This time, we made no sound.

And still, nobody cared. If they'd
Cared, it wouldn't have come as such a
Surprise
To them.

And
even
still...

Some of us got back up. And some of us still do.
The world doesn't let us grow to be trees
So we have learned to blossom.

And even though flowers may not live as long
As trees, or grow as high, as strong as trees,
Despite all of these supposed flaws, if given the choice
Right now, any one of those trees would rather
Look down at a flower
Than up at each other.

Trees may last longer, grow taller, see the sun more often.
But flowers?
Despite trees blocking out the light,
Stealing precious nutrients,
And doing everything in their power to tower over us,
With as little sunlight as possible,
Flowers are still
Beautiful.