Picked

You pick flowers instead of leaving them alone.

You want them so much for yourself

you are willing to let them die.

You call it love

when you close your fist around the stem.

You call it beauty

while it wilts in your hand.

You do not ask

what it needed from the sun,

or how the wind

was teaching it to stand.

You only see

how it would look in your room,

how it would brighten your table,

how it would belong to you.

But flowers were never meant

to survive in captivity.

Their roots remember the earth

even when their petals cannot.

And when it fades,

you sigh at its fragility

never at your own.

You say it wasn’t strong enough.

You say it wasn’t meant to last.

You never say

you pulled it from its chance.

Love is not possession.

Beauty is not ownership.

And wanting something

is not the same

as caring for it.