I do not want the flowers to stop growing

The world is no more screaming, but whispering. 

On its knees - a feeble, withered, ancient, wrinkled sort of thing. 

Sometimes it forgets to believe that it can be loved. Folds in on itself, lets us walk all over it with our hasty, oppressive footfalls. In our rush to experience the world, we forget that it needs to be held, too. 

We forget the purpose of the flowers, the leaves, the sunsets, the breeze - the world’s silently defiant cry for help, its simple plea to be seen and felt. 

So we must turn back to children, take our shoes off and step very lightly on the wet green grass, as we did the very first time. And afterwards, we must remember to smile in utter, childlike awe. 

Though we love to shout over the wind and come out of storms smiling, we must let ourselves lose to the world. 

Because we have never been more inconvenient than we are now. 

We snatch power and twist it around so it falls on its own head. 

We turn to rust everything we touch. We let the streets run red. 

We call ourselves more things than we need to. 

We change the shapes of everything beautiful we were ever given till we don’t remember their names anymore. 

We are bigger, bolder, faster, meaner, and more tiresome than ever. 

And in the dire rush of it all, in the screaming and snatching, in the urgent, mechanical footsteps going nowhere, in constantly changing our definitions of what deserves to be loved and saved and what does not, the world loses its voice and resorts to whispering. 

It is trampled. Suffocated. 

Mouth taped over, tongue cut off. It forgets what it was made for. 

So now, more than ever before, we must slow-dance at the pace of the world. Hold its hand as it grows old.  Celebrate its tenderness by giving it back - kiss the flowers, kiss the wind, let the rivers go where they’re going. Place our lips at the soft core of this earth and drink from its peace. Stay silent while the crickets chirp, stop adulterating the world with our futile screams. 

We must stop. Make peace with the world turning even in the absence of our footfalls. 

Lay down, surrender our weapons, and for once, let the world trample us. 

Because I do not want the flowers to stop growing. I do not want the flowers to stop growing.