i love sunflowers so i stopped picking them

 i love sunflowers, so i stopped picking them.

i stay away from them, because i'm bad for them.

but there was a time where i would collect them

because i thought if I love them so much and they brought joy and light into my space, they would thrive.

and so i'd sing to them, too scared to touch them too much. when i was happy I'd remember to play music for them and feed them sugars and suns so they could maybe be as beautiful and humungous as their peers. When I was sad and quiet, they wait in my selection of white ceramic pots.

but then over time they would begin to slouch, and their faces would peer over the lip, over at my dead basils below them. oh no, their fate.

they would begin to shed dandruffs and drip from their pores. 

but i stupidly interpreted the drips as honey and slouching as adjustments to my environment.

as i kill them.

and so at 2:45, as i watch videos of sunflower fields, almost orange yellows. 

standing so tall so proud. 

and i look over to my vase of dead heads with molded stems, what have i done?

sunflower, proudflower, flower power.

and i killed them all.