i've seen flowers my entire life and constantly marveled at their beauty
with child-like eyes full of wonder.
i've had flowers in my home for my entire life.
they brighten up any room regardless of how light it is
and it's always sad when they start to shrivel, but i knew that new ones were never far away.
then i started to read books where flowers were not beautiful,
they were shriveled and dead, representing something that once was.
my child-like eyes full of wonder began to dull with every passing page.
then i started picking apart writings about flowers.
the flowers always represented some sort of tragic beauty that my teacher told me was once romantic.
what is romantic about that?
my eyes were no longer the eyes of a child.
they were the eyes of someone who has seen too much, thought too much, read too much.
dull, empty, and sad.

yet, at the end of the winter, when the green buds begin to free themselves from the dirt,
i turn into that child again -
seeing true beauty in something that is alive, something new, something happy.
the resilience of the delicate flowers intrigues me.
flowers are so fragile they should never survive the harsh, cold winters.
but they do.

i must be like these flowers