Pink. That's the first thing. Four petals, maybe five, curved back like paper that's been read too many times. A yellow heart, dusted with pollen. The branch is thin. It holds anyway. I don't know how. Light comes from the left, soft and even. It does not hurry. Behind the flowers, everything goes quiet. Nothing here demands anything of you. No message. No deadline. No noise. Just a flower doing the only thing it knows how to do, which is open. In its own time. Not a minute early. Not a minute late. I stood in front of it for a minute. Then another. My shoulders dropped somewhere in there. That's the whole point, isn't it? Looking, slowly, until you notice you've been holding your breath. Then you let it go. The flower keeps opening. That's all it ever did. That's enough. Some days I need to remember that. I put my phone down for five minutes. The sky didn't fall. The flower didn't notice. I think that's why I like flowers. They're honest. They ask for sun and water and then they give you everything they've got. #dogwood #pinkblooms #minimal
