Dying Flowers

It’s always like that, isn’t it.

You show up for everyone. You give people the exact sentence that would’ve saved you on your worst night. And somehow you do it without asking for anything back, like your own hurt is something you should be able to swallow neatly.

But I see the way you go silent after you’ve been kind.

I see how you turn your pain into patience. How you turn your exhaustion into warmth. How you keep watering other people while you’re slowly drying out. It’s not that you’re pretending to be okay. It’s that you learned how to be useful even when you’re falling apart, because being useful feels safer than being seen.

You don’t call it strength, but it is.

Not the loud kind. Not the kind that wins arguments or looks good in daylight. The quiet kind. The kind that survives. The kind that keeps breathing even when the heart doesn’t want to. The kind that still offers softness, even after being taught the world doesn’t reward it.

Still, I wish you didn’t have to be the one holding everything together.

I wish you could say, just once, “I’m not okay,” without feeling like you’re disappointing someone. I wish you could cry without apologizing for it. I wish you could let your own wounds speak, instead of keeping them tucked away like they’re too ugly, too much, too inconvenient for the people who only know how to take.

You don’t have to earn tenderness.
You don’t have to be in control to be loved.
You don’t have to keep bleeding quietly just so everyone else can stay comfortable.

If you’re tired, you’re allowed to be tired.
If you’re hurt, you’re allowed to be hurt.
If you’re breaking, you’re allowed to admit it.

Even dying flowers deserve care.
Especially the ones that keep trying to look beautiful for everyone else.