We should be free or we should die, 
      but freedom is death
                                    sometimes-- 
when the world opens up
like a flower, petals of possibility 
splayed before you, each
                                   opportunity

waiting to be
                     plucked 
                     examined
                     admired
& you’re so long in choosing
that the flower withers
                                   & dies,
brown at the edges.

None of us mean to kill it, & so 
we force our own demise
                                       to make up for it.