(Whoever reads this, please know you are a) always deserving of love, b) always valid and c) you belong; you own the space you occupy. Everyone is a flower in this crazy garden of life and even if you think you're an unwanted flower, you're a real flower and you are wanted in this garden)
You're a flower no one wanted.
They told me that often. Eventually, I watched all the 'real' flowers around me grow, their petals white, pink, red, blue, lavender, purple, yellow, orange, cream, and many more colours. I sat under a few of them, and people called me 'Dandelion'. More often, they called me 'weed'.
I came to know early on I was disliked, and not part of a *true* garden. It saddened me how easily the other flowers were watered and picked, gushed over, while people despised me, the weed: the unsightly, the lament of a gardener. I was little watered, yet I thrived. They didn't like that.
I've been torn out of many gardens, my thistles detested, my existence a sign of apocalypse.
I never understood why they detested my thorns while loving the roses', but I suppose it was more appealing. I kept growing; a flower is a flower, and it must grow. Maybe I might look nice someday?
None wanted the weed flower.
I began to lose hope, but carried on growing, unable to do anything else. I grew, I was meant to grow.
I didn't like being here, where I was disturbing the flowers who whispered over me that they didn't like my small petals, my thistle leaves, my stalk. I wish I could leave.
After a while, the thorns pierce you.
I wished, more than anything, I could be a flower. I tried being brighter, more pretty, but I was, still a dandelion.
I was never going to be a flower.
Alas, I was fated to be a weed, detested, unwanted. I don't know why I bloomed.
One day, a small hand caressed my petals, and cooed over me, the young one unwilling to leave the garden without me.
'But it's a weed!' the mother reasoned.
'nuh! Flowe!' cried the child, stomping his foot before smiling and kissing my petals.
I grew proudly with no regrets from then on, the boy growing too, and I will always treasure the boy who supported me as a flower.