Hands hold the dried petals;

My hands.

These petals are a bubble of water droplets that with one wrong touch flood the surface.

One touch could be danger—

The end.

And so I don’t touch them much,

My petals,

For the risk, like that of a young girl and ubiquitous social temptation when in the open world,

To break and crush and become dust,

Lives.

To scatter is unwanted:

Like ash

Leftover from a fire before that kept out the Black but let in the ironic safety of Red,

Which flies alongside the wings of Wind.

No—no.

I don’t want that.

My petals.

Even though the sun is always promised to rise again in the coming morning

It still is temporary to the day.

Not my petals.

They will be a Forever.

My hands

Are not, but the petals will not be temporary as long as they are safe in that little hatbox.

Away from the burden of Evil’s threat,

Not in my hands.

But I like to touch them.

To remember—

Not the sadness and aching from that day that filled the room these flowers were in,

But that life is not eternal;

The Promise.

To live is to risk.

Skin on hands

Protects but doesn’t prevent because we all yearn to touch what we shouldn’t.

I hold my petals

Though I know.

They are kept safe in that hatbox,

My petals,

But at times I find them in my hands before I realize that again I risked their eternity,

Like she did that night

Driving.

It is sad when they dry,

The petals,

And become endangered of shattering and dissolving and spilling and getting blown away,

But age brings risk and

Mystery.

New flowers bloom with

New petals.

But these are irreplaceable just as each living being’s breath is.

My Dear Aunt, red like Her Petals,

Dead.