You grew alone in a marsh that never learned your name. Pale and immaculate, you rose from black water believing beauty must surely summon reverence, that to exist so purely was to deserve recognition. But the world passed over you with the same indifferent light it gave the weeds, the same rain it gave the mud. And in that neglect, you discovered the cruelest truth: to be exceptional means nothing if no one kneels to witness it.
You could not bear your loneliness. It swelled inside you until it became something heavier than sorrow, something contagious. What you could not contain, you released. The flowers around you began to droop, their colors dimming, their bright little lives darkened by the gravity you carried. One by one, you brought them down to your depth, until the whole marsh resembled your suffering.
At last, you were no longer alone.
But neither were you singular.
