It is summer.
On my walks I have frequented the most beautiful flower you could conceive. It stands in a clearing across from the gravel path I stand on. I stood in awe of it every time I passed until I realized I could not live with myself if I did not approach this flower.

So I walked off my gravel path into the meadows; an experience that was unnatural to me. I approached the flower and was even more baffled by it up close. Its petals showed an assortment of different colours; each different and distinct from the other. I conversed with it telling it my deepest secrets, my dreams, my fears. It did not turn away from me or look at my soul with disgust. It stood tall despite its short stature and remained in bloom not coiling away from me.

I soon began talking with it every day never skipping my walk. Each day I’d notice a new petal I had not discovered. I wished to see them all, to be the only one who caressed them gently. One day a thorn pricked my hand, and I was left bleeding, but I wasn’t angry with the flower. I was merely excited to discover its every thorn and learn to navigate them. To show it I care for them just as much as Its petals.

A vase, I’ll put it in a vase and take it home, where I can spend the rest of my life with it. I approached it like I do every day I walk to the meadows and bend down to speak with it. Today however is different. This flower will be mine and mine alone until we wither away. I pull out my shears and press it to its neck, but just as I am about to cut. I look at it and I cry.

For I know that to bring it with me would only make them wither. What a grave crime it would be to rip it from its home where it bloomed into my life. I could change its water every day, give it the comfiest vase, put it on the windowsill where all the sunshine could reach. I could even preserve it so that its beauty would last forever, but I know this is a falsehood; it would be nothing but a husk. All these things I would do, yet I know the only truth is that this flower cannot remain happy or healthy if it were mine.
It’s winter now.
I do not walk down that path anymore.