You
compare me to a flower. But the thing about flowers is that
we uproot them for our own pleasures. Pull them from their
own wants, their own needs. We take them from where
they’re grounded, where they’re safe, where they
have grown and made a life for themselves and place them in a
pot on a shelf. We take them and destroy them for our own
selfish desires. Call them beautiful. But that’s not
love. And I’m not a flower. I will not be taken from
where I am, where I want to be, to decorate the sill of your
bedroom window. I will not be labeled as ‘pretty’
in the last days before my leaves shrivel, before my petals
fall, before my life runs out and you find someone else to
use as decoration. Love me, you say. You want to uproot me.
You want to change me. But I won’t let you. Your love
is just like the flower you want me to become. Something that
looks pretty, for the time it lasts. Something to adorn your
life, to make it beautiful. But kills me in the process. And
I won't be destroyed.
—
Marisa Donnelly
