Pressed flowers

Leaden skies are visible through the window- a simple rectangle of glass framed in weathered wood.  Suspended from the gray frame is a circle of glass edged in pewter-colored solder.  Within the circle, I view  four faded, pressed flowers.
I recall the day I took each flower: fresh, alive, vibrant, and placed it in the flower press.

The darkest is a single scarlet trumpet-shape from a cardinal plant.  The flower had bloomed and been plucked as the first buds opened, quickly hidden away in the flower press, denied the opportunity to be seen or complete its life cycle. It was anger, cut short and suppressed.

Near the cardinal plant blossom is a pale blue scilla flower. I found it blooming in the lawn of my childhood as I played, it caught my tears when emotion welled up and was brushed away by unkind words. The sky blue star shaped flower seems to reach out arms in every direction. The sadness touches nothing.

The center of the glass orb is filled with a large yellow daisy. No longer perfect and complete, I had plucked several of its petals asking "am I loved, am I not" before placing it firmly in the flower press, hiding my fear, my belief of my unworthiness.

The last flower, a tiny purple violet, I had found tucked under a large green heart-shaped leaf. My shame exposed despite its best effort to hide.  I drew it out, considered it and rejected it and myself- into the press it went.

My flower press is in my brain. My daily headaches are the weight of it squeezing life, color out of my emotions as I hide them there. It leaves behind dry, pale, flat images.  When they are thoroughly dead, I take them out of the press and construct a visually pleasing arrangement sealed behind glass- untouchable.

My lifeless garden of emotion.