Moonflowers: A Descriptive Essay

     Love – is described as something beautiful by fantasies and fables. Shakespeare wrote that love is "too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like a thorn." And I agree with Shakespeare. Love is when you feel safe in someone's arms, exposing yourself – all of yourself, to be vulnerable – to being hurt. To love is not only a flower but also its thorns. Love is willingly throwing yourself over the edge of a cliff, knowing that you will shatter. Love is the most exquisite form of self-destruction.

Moonflower – a plant that I love the most. Moonflowers are beautiful. This plant only blooms two months a year, and only at night. By morning, these blooms would be dead, and by tomorrow night, new buds would grow before they too would perish. In three weeks, this entire plant would be dead, and I would have to plant again. It's natural; beautiful. They break down, and rise back up, and the cycle repeats. Moonflowers are like love, it's not always smooth, and easygoing. It takes a lot of patience, pain, endurance, and hard work.

Owen Sharma once said that "to truly love another person is to accept that the work of loving them is worth the pain of losing them". One day at a time – to appreciate each little moment – to give each day, like it is your last. To open yourself up to the vulnerability and pain you'll feel when you eventually, inevitably lose them. The pain will be great, but the idea of not loving this person, of them not being in your life, is even more painful. So you choose love, despite inevitable suffering, because it is precious and beautiful. And you keep working on it being the best it can be for the finite time you have with it.

references:

     'The Jolly Corner' (2020) The Haunting of Bly Manor, Season 1, episode 6.
     Netflix, 17 October 2023.

     'The Great Good Place' (2020) The Haunting of Bly Manor, Season 1, episode 1.
     Netflix, 17 October 2023.

     Shakespeare, William. "Romeo and Juliet". Act 1 Scene 4.