Crimson Poppy

Here I am walking in the dampened streets: night is shrouded by the thickest curtain of clouds - mocking smoke suspending its content like a faulty blouse.

The lights from the streets stain the clouds with a bruise-colored orange like the sky has befallen victim to an abusive spouse.

The stench of smoldering rot and gasoline with the musk of stagnant winds sting my eyes and burn my nostrils, curdling the contents in my gut.

The trees are bare - lifeless like a corpse, the grass dried and discolored. This place consumes nature’s delicacy, its purity forcing it to appeal to the eye and give comfort like a working slut.

In my peripherals, something catches my attention like a car crash, but what could it possibly be? I turn to see this object that seemingly called out to me and when I gaze upon it, my eyes try to register to no avail.

It’s a plant, but it seems so alien with its slender stem green as an emerald, so thin as if the wind could blow and it would snap. But it stands as if saying, “I can stand against the strongest gale.”

The plant stem shoots from the ground defiantly and melds into this almost heart-shaped bud of dark crimson, until it bloomed into its brilliance. I am overwhelmed and all I see is red, bright as thousand suns and as red as blood.

And then my mind opened, like the blooming of the flower, and The Great Understanding came over me like a surging wave rushing towards me - a flood.

Finally, clarity comes to me like a visiting angel, blessing me with a kiss of knowledge and understanding: A man can search his entire life in look for true beauty, but only when he stops will he see that beauty cannot be found - it will find you. All that will be required is faith in the moment.

Falling to my knees in awe, tears welling up in my eyes and pouring down my skin, I ask, “How could I be so ignorant? How could I be so naïve as to think I understood true beauty?” unbeknown to me the vanity I must have soaked in for so long. But this blessing of a flower showed the truth as it stands proving it to be regnant.

Such perfection in an unperfected world, each petal just as brilliant and beautiful as if it were the previous one’s perfect copy.

Perhaps in simplicity lies complexity, and beauty is meant to be simple, fragile, delicate, and sweet, showing trust to fate. To find the answer in that crimson poppy…