Artificial Flowers — On a Vanishing Eternity Civilization places mourning within the form of ritual. And yet, within these solemn, quiet moments of remembrance, my heart still wavers, finding nowhere to rest. Each year, I place plastic flowers before the portrait. As if they could stand in for my heart. These flowers do not wilt. They do not change. They promise eternity. And yet that eternity is replaced, again and again. What has endured is taken away, and what is new is set in its place — because what has endured begins to look insufficient, because what is new seems to better embody my mourning, my love. Because something like guilt arises toward what has quietly held its ground. Where do these flowers go, once removed? They are not recycled. They are classified as industrial waste. Living flowers decompose and return to the earth, but these — promised eternity, never eternal — accumulate somewhere out of sight. There, I felt a kind of futility. And the thought came to me: like these flowers, discarded and disappearing, perhaps the longing I carry for someone, too, vanishes in this very moment. — Jinseok Lee