Seasons.

The spring was a pleasant time. A beginning. Not without its flaws - rain must fall for things to bloom, after all. The plant was left alone inside, given very little sunlight, the teddy bears in the room its only company. Trying to please the two who planted it.

Its petals were ripped away at some strange moment but they hardly noticed, too busy giggling at the gentle hands of their attacker, too young to know the difference between a love true and one that required egregious sacrifice. This attacker was their only friend. And despite the bad that was done, the flower felt more pain at losing her.

Summer came much too soon. The boiling heat began to char the plant's edges, causing terrible migraines and an urge to give it all up. Nigerian heat is much too sweltering for a living thing to want to stay alive and all things will go, right? It wanted to leave much sooner than it should have.

The heat lasted years. Before the flower learnt that the sun in itself could also be gentle and warm rather than cruel and derogatory, it would offer itself before the scorch. A potted plant with no roots, suddenly surrounded by varied others.

It tried to find solace in their noise but couldn't stop comparing itself. It shied away from the eyes when all it had wanted to do was bloom, once. It let the sun burn because nothing else seemed right to feel but pain. A specially, self-crafted inferno, right there in its head.

But eventually, all things pass. The sun gave way in time. Not gently but in a sharp twist of intensity. It was cruel and sudden but perhaps it was necessary. The mind gave way to autumn and the little plant lay down, exhausted from it all, and let the winds blow as they chose.

It hardly moved those years. It was cold, bitter, practically dead. Nothing mattered, anymore.

Yet, distanced and cold as it tried to be to hide its vulnerability, another attacker came.

The petals were stripped in a new way. The plant was much too seasoned to ignore the way it felt. To see it as kindness. This attacker wasn't gentle, only believed she was. Our tired little plant let the cold winds of autumn take over completely. Its pot's foundation shaken; there was a wider void there than ever before.

Time passed. Attempts were made to paint its pot a little brighter. Pretend all was well. The winds were always cold and it didn't think it deserved the decency of a blanket. The leaves fell until they swirled in the plant's mind, leaving a soft pile of snow behind.

There's something about snow. It was something, somewhere new. It seemed frigid at first but felt safer, too.

At some point, the plant left autumn behind. Ran from the horrid winds and the attacker, holding onto the petals it had still, warmed by a kinder, thicker, self-crafted blanket.