Content Warnings: emotional abuse, emotional neglect
Dear,
The girl in kindergarten
who pulled out every little
flower from the playground hill
Because they were pretty
Who was surprised when I told you
they could not continue living
if uprooted from the dirt
I wonder if this is how everyone starts—not knowing that things take water and sun to grow, and painfully oblivious to how we may do harm to the world around us.
I think I am most afraid of those who grow up to pluck again and again and hope something different happens. Those who are appalled to find that flowers will not immediately grow mouths and stomachs for the sake of sitting in an eternal vase. Those who don’t notice when something is dying. Or someone.
We were children back then, so it’s no surprise.
But I wonder how you are now—if you have learned to treat things gently, or if you have continued to pluck them from the ground. If you are also someone who lives without noticing.
