5.

I wonder what it’s like to be a flower. To feel your roots grow down into the earth and forever rooting you into place. Twisting the ends around other roots and pieces of dirt until you’re holding on so tight that they have to keep growing. I wonder what it feels like to push through the surface of the soil for the first time and feel the kiss of the sun on your newly grown stem.  

I wonder what it feels like to grow a centimetre day by day and to slowly have my arms grow out and stretch wide across the earth. Each new arm bringing an opportunity of shade for the insects below that travel over the dirt in a hunt for food and shelter. At the end of each arm brings promise of a new bid of life that is waiting to flower with its brothers and sisters when the time is right. 

I wonder what it feels like to finally reach the day where you have grown to your tallest and most majestic heights where you finally are ready to show the world the secret beauty that you’ve been working on in the long months that you’ve been growing. I wonder what it feels like to finally open all the buds along your arms and push out the many wide petals that you’ve been hiding in their wombs of leaves. To stretch high up towards the blazing orb in the sky that fuels their growth and beauty in this world. I wonder what it feels like to have bees & other insects use your blood as a food source. To suck the marrow out of your core $ leave behind a faint memory of thanks from their touch. To know that you are playing your own special part in this world.  

I wonder what it feels like to feel the wind rippling through your petals on a warm summer's night. Or the feeling of rain on your leaves during an autumn shower. Or during a winter storm that blows a strong gale, yet you know you’re not going anywhere thanks to the roots that have stayed strong deep since day one. Or I wonder how it feels to come to the end of a life cycle and feel each of your petals slowly die and fall to the ground below. To have the womb of the bud grow back around all that’s left once all the last petals have fallen. I wonder if the new buds ever remember the life of the ones that came before. Each cycle having been the exact same but also oh so different at the same time. Do they hold a tiny fragment of bone from all their ancestors inside the bud? Whatever it is, I wonder what it’s like to be tall, strong, proud & beautiful in a garden filled with others exactly like me. 

I wonder what it’s like to be looked at in admiration for my beauty by those that were just happy to look. To have a series of onlookers all the way through my lifetime & love every stage of my growth. Do flowers know what colour they will bloom before their buds open for the first time? Do they get a choice in the matter? I wonder if flowers know how much joy they bring everyone who feasts their eyes upon their beauty. I wonder if flowers know about the weeds that attempt to grow in their shadow. Do they feel the brush of the feral flower’s roots upon their own? Do they mind that another is trying to anchor themselves to their own hard grown roots?  

I wonder what it’s like to feel the pain of someone picking one of your arms to steal your beauty for themselves. Do they feel the disconnect of nerves from their body as their arm is ripped away? I wonder if they utter a silent scream for the gods every time someone wants to hold their beauty for themselves. Do they remember each arm that has been stolen from them as they regrow one its place? I wonder what it’s like to regrow an arm. To feel the growing pains once more of a fresh limb as a reminder of what was once there. To feel the loss of something and know that while the replacement will be just as pretty as the arm before, it’ll never be the same. I wonder if the flower remembers all that steal their beauty, and I wonder if they then refuse to show them their beauty again.