I'm a restaurant owner who everybody loves to come to. They eat, they chit-chat, they're having a good time with me. There were tables full of my friends, colleagues, colleagues who became best friends, family, and even myself but in different versions. They all look so happy. Some new people come, some old people leave, sometimes they come and go. But it doesn't matter because the restaurant is still full, alive, and people are happy.

Each table calls me to have a chit-chat with them. We shared laughs, cries, secrets, and they invited me to come to their restaurant. It's me dancing from one table to another. They're calling my name. I was so full of happiness. Even the table with other versions of myself mesmerizes me. They look fat haha, but they look happy and alive, with so much passion in their eyes.

That restaurant might be full of smiles, but they blind me. I don't realize that while I'm dancing here and there, behind my back, the visitors at each table are leaving the restaurant. Without me realizing it, they are gone. Alone, or someone has picked them up. For a while, I don't care. Whispering to myself, "hey, it's okay. People change. You still got a table with your people."

And one day, the restaurant has never been so quiet. I see the door sign—it says "OPEN," but no one comes. I look inside. There are only a few people left, tidying up their things, about to leave the restaurant. Even the people I once gave the best table with the best view. I’m begging them to stay. But the people who pick them up are stronger than me. Maybe they have a nicer restaurant, I think to myself.

Not long after, the restaurant is empty. Oh wait—the other version of me is still in the corner. I come to them, but they slowly disappear. But I don't care. I just watch them go. The "DOMMM" sound shocks me. It's part of the ceiling in my restaurant, which suddenly turns into an abandoned restaurant.

The tables are overturned, the decorations broken. No more light days, no more dancing from table to table, no more people calling my name to share stories, sadness, and secrets. Of course, the lamps are turning off.

I try to see outside from the window, screaming to invite people to come to my restaurant. But no one comes. It's just me, and the small TV that’s still on, trying to distract me from my sadness.

Yet, it's not a distraction.

On the screen, I can see my people, getting their lives moving forward. One gets married, one has kids, one gets engaged, one gets a promotion, one gets a new house—they all look so happy. I walk backward to the table that still hasn’t broken yet. Getting comfy in the corner.

There lies a flower. It is feeble. It rests its body upon the soil, the same dry and cracked and empty soil that had at one time provided the flower with all the nutrients it had needed to thrive. What was sky is now pale, as if it is diseased and anemic, a sickly pastel of the vivid hue it had once proclaimed. All of the life-giving water is gone. This is a desolate land.

The delicate petals were the first to go. Their violet color drained, and they shriveled in on themselves. They fell to the ground like the ashes of a tragic fire. The leaves followed suit and were swept up and away in an arid wind. The fibrous threads of the stem stood strong and noble for as long as they were able but could bear the weight of themselves no longer and slowly came to lie defeated against the earth. All that remains now are the roots.

Below the surface, the roots are alive. Very much alive. The desire is there - they want to grow. They dare to behold, to faithfully and desperately cling, to the vision of what they once were, of what they had once created and embodied. What will it take? What will it require? What measures must be exercised for this flower to flourish again?

Water. And tenderness. And fertilizer, perhaps. What will serve as the fertilizer? What thing, or things, will best serve as the impetus to gently coax this flower to blossom once more?

Yes. That is the question. The water and the sun and the tender care are the constants for any flower or plant. But the fertilizer is the variant. What is nourishing to one is toxic to another.

Sometimes I think of how easy it would be to end my life because everything stays quiet for once, and I get to find peace I hope. I hope I sleep eternally because I think I deserve it. 

Sometimes I’m caught in between the good things I deserve and all the bad things I deserve. I keep telling myself that no one is bad but they make bad decisions and we’re all human. 

But I don’t know why I could never see that for myself. I’ve hurt people a lot in my years of living but I seem to be the most terrible person I know.