Tiny Purple Flower

If you have seen them, you know.

A beautiful blessing and a terrible curse.

 

To know is to understand, to appreciate, but also to long. I almost wish I could be ignorant once more, that I could settle into normalcy without a backward glance. But I cannot. I know too much. And yet, never enough. Once I knew, once I read the words upon that page, a desire was burned into my soul, a hole that I doubt can ever be filled. After all, I'm just me. The tiny purple flower most call a weed. How I remember picking those flowers, seeing the exquisite beauty in something so small, so commonplace. Others smiled, but did not see what I saw. I am them, the tiny purple flowers. Surrounded by roses and lilies and tulips and orchids. Just a weed.

 

I have seen now; I know what others have. I have watched them pass by in favor of the roses, the lilies, the tulips, the orchids. They do not see me right next to them. I am too small, too ordinary, too commonplace. I plead from the bottom of my soul, just look at me, just give me a chance! But the scent of roses has caught them, ensnared them with its timeless, undeniable beauty. Will there ever be another like me? Someone wandering by, their eyes on their feet, a tiny purple flower on a pale golden stem catching their eye. Will they kneel to look, captivated by its beauty in the weeds around it, oblivious to the exotic beauties towering above it? Will he reach out to that one small flower and free her from her stem? Will he bask in her simple flower scent, gaze at her, seeing more than what she is? Will he hold her close to his heart and nurture her until the day she wilts? Will he keep her memory locked away in a book, loving and remembering long after she is gone? And will he hold that book and remember, smiling as he fades away?

 

Oh, that I could be that flower. If only, if only.