By Laily Berjis, TIWP Student

How to keep flowers fresh longer:
honey in the water, sprinkle of sugar, ice cubes, crushed aspirin, a copper penny,
advice whispered like kitchen secrets
as if time could listen.

We focus too much to slow them,
but they’re already wilting
even as we admire them.

They bloom anyway,
not because of us,
but because that’s what they are meant to do,
silently,
without needing a reason.

We try to cage the wind,
bottle the storm,
catch the sun in our bare hands,
tame the fire,
but it manages to escape,
the way moments always do.
Like a breath, here, then gone.

We rush too much on keeping things,
forgetting the real love is the watching,
letting the flower teach us how to let go.

So stop trying to stop the clock.
Watch.
Not to fix,
but to observe.
Breathe with the bloom.
Be fully here,
because this moment,
this breath,
is the only flame you hold.