When Brightness Fades Quietly

A sunflower, bowed

and brittle as old bones,

petals curling like tired hands

folded away from the sun.

Its stiff stem tangled

in dead grass by the curb,

forgotten as the city moved on

with all the careless noise

of summer leaving.

I crushed one dry petal

beneath my shoe—the crackle

too loud for the quiet street.

It held no promise,

no stubborn hope,

just the slow dying

of something once bright,

fading like a word lost

to the wind.