Withering Hibiscus

Did you know a hibiscus flower blooms for only one day?

It grows in silence as color fills its veins.
It suffers nature's whims for the chance to come alive by dawn,
all despite knowing it must fold back into death's hands by nightfall.

Twenty-four hours of glory.
Are our lives much different?

Perhaps we were never meant to cling to what is destined to depart,
but instead to water ourselves,
to bloom fully before transcending into our truest form.

And maybe, within this one honest moment we are given,
our beauty can become etched into stone
for other wandering souls to stumble upon.

I grimace at the thought of detachment from this world,
yet I realize there is a strange peace in acceptance.

What I seek is not the moment of blooming,
but what comes after:
withering.

Because the withering of my being would mean
that I truly lived.
I did bloom.

And now,
I become.