I don’t want to stick out like a weed in a field of wildflowers. A weed envying how their colors never apologize for being seen, yet I’m left pleading. Shrinking beneath the sun, curling inwards. I’m crying out for help, yet no one comes to comfort me. They go to the wildflowers as they bloom without shame, without hesitation. The breeze even seems to favor their petals over my ‘thorns’.

Their beauty is effortless, mine simply is an apology wrapped in silence. And yet every waking moment, I ache to be called a wildflower. It’s not going to happen, though, well, not any time soon at least. I keep growing in places where I’m unwanted, disliked, and ripped out from the roots before I ever get a chance to bloom.

Somehow, I’m still alive—growing even though I’m crumpled up like an old newspaper that you don’t need anymore. Tossed into the corners where light doesn’t reach, where it’s cold and damp after a rainstorm. Where no one reads the words I used to scream—the ink is smudged now, and the paper creased.

Am I still readable? Or am I too far gone to be seen? To be helped? I think I am…