Flowers

Roses are red, sunflowers are yellow. Sugar is sweet, and so is Jell-O.

Roses are red, sunflowers are yellow. Sugar is sweet, and so is Jell-O.

It's embarrassing to admit it, but what the heck: sunflowers are my favorite flowers. I just discovered this recently, during one of my trips to Katipunan for my then weekly SOA study sessions. Usually, I would take the MRT-LRT route; it's faster and it's cheaper. On some occasions, though, when I'm feeling melancholic, when I feel like riding on the coattails of the wind (a little melodramatic there, hee), I take the MRT-jeepney-jeepney route. The first jeepney ride drives me to UP, where I ride the second jeepney that drives me to Katipunan. It was during the first jeepney ride when I first saw those grand sunflowers, yellow as the brightest sunshine, planted in the islands lined up all the way to UP.

Everything about them captured my attention. The flowers filled me with both fascination and awe. First of all-- man, they were huge! I've always thought of sunflowers as little living creatures that little girls place in their little baskets to toss around like confetti. I was wrong. Even the black center of each flower was colossal enough to swallow me whole. Perhaps that is partly why I'm so in awe of them: sunflowers can-- and given the chance, will-- dominate me. Nonetheless, the mathematical precision of its existence and the simplicity of its beauty all give me reason to allow myself to succumb to its domination.

Roses are another story. If sunflowers fascinate and awe me, roses profoundly touch me. But it hasn't always been this way. As a matter of fact, I have never been fond of roses before. I couldn't understand what was so beautiful about these thorny flowers. I came to the conclusion, then, that roses are not beautiful by themselves; commercialism has made it so.

But people change their minds, especially when the right event or opportunity to do so come along. And I have changed mine. A memory has been attached. A stigma has been created. Roses are now very special to me. I've said earlier that they touch me, but I take that back. They don't touch me, they pierce me, like the thorns in which they are showered.

Roses are red for they bleed. For you. For me.