I think about it a lot, the rose that I destroyed. I thought it’s petals would look pretty in a photo that I wanted to take, and nothing of it as I tore it limb from limb before carelessly discarding what was left. I wasn’t the one to kill the thing, but I didn’t treat it with any dignity either. And it wasn’t until after the petals had served their purpose that I realized the carnage I’d wrought. Perhaps, if I had put them outside, the wind would have found use of them.
What else has suffered by my hand without so much as a second thought in it’s direction? And for nothing more than to capture a moment in time manufactured by vanity. It may have been just another flower in a bouquet, but if you wade through life without ever stopping to look over your shoulder, you’ll never know the size of your wake. If I were the rose, I may have liked to see the sun one more time.