BLOOM

Do you feel the petals as they unfurl, spreading out and reaching for sunlight? Watch as they awaken into colours of pink, blue, yellow, orange? Can you feel it now, as you grow tall and stretch, aching with growing pains as you come into your own? You are almost there, it is only a little bit longer. Don’t be scared - it’s only forever.

To bloom - to produce flowers. As you change from a bud into all your vibrancy. It is easy to miss the bloom that appears in a person’s cheek as they smile in first love. To see their petals burst in moments of great and overwhelming emotion. It can happen in the dark just as well as in the day. It can happen in moments of vulnerability and in moments of boundary. We can bloom even as we fear that eventually we may wilt. To bloom, to grow, to watch you become the person you are meant to be even as you ever-change. You are beautiful.

It is a rare thing to capture the moment of a bloom. It can happen so quickly and be gone in an instant if we are not careful. We can mourn the loss of it too soon.

In our fifth issue of Forget-Me-Not Press, thirty-five writers and artists have captured a moment - allowing us the time to ponder over it, indulge ourselves in it, and perhaps to even inspire growing pains as you begin to unfurl and find yourself in bloom.