The world is cruel to us flowers of fire.
They pick at the gardens of the frostbitten land in search of us,
to find us, hold us, steal our flames.
They use our warmth and leave us drained
petal after petal after petal...
We insist we have enough embers to sacrifice
seeing us withering they still greedily take as we begin to freeze.
We fall from our phoenix grace
Plummeting towards what we promised to never become
Reborn from pain.
we change.
The twinkle and wonder in our once stardust ridden orbs
dulled by glacial walls
We cage our wild hearts under bitter bars built of icicles
to protect us from ever being punished again.
the ice becomes our new home.
Winter flowers,
I now understand why you are so cold
Matriculant 2020
