Dawn: Night-Blooming Flower

I am tired the way the deep ocean is tired... not from movement, but from pressure, from holding back what wants to rise, from swallowing salt until I've almost forgotten I was made for sweeter things. But listen: somewhere there are greenhouses, gardens where the night-blooming flowers are celebrated for their strangeness, where they grow in clusters, roots tangled together, petals open wide under the moon. I have not seen this garden. But I have heard it exists. And some days, that is enough to keep my roots reaching deeper, to keep my petals furled but waiting, to keep this small, persistent bloom from giving up entirely on spring.