Our words and actions are like a flower:
Sometimes we offer petals,
soft, fragrant, open to the light.
Other times, we grow thorns,
sharp, guarded, born of pain.

And sometimes, we are gifted petals,
gentle, unexpected, a surprise of grace.
Other times, we are offered thorns,
cold, sudden, a reminder of what we’ve lost.

Harm or love,
It is for the receiver to choose:
To stand as a target,
Or to let words and actions
flow around, and back,
to the giver.

Then the receiver becomes the giver,
And the giver becomes the receiver.
The gift rests in your hand,
in my hand,
in no one’s hand.

There is no escaping the reflection,
the expression,
and the impression.
We are not separate from what we give,
we are the bloom, the wound, the echo.
We are the silence between the petals,
the shadow cast by the thorn,
the breath that carries both.