The roses I always offered you were never meant to be red

but the prick of the dull knife against my skin stained

the delicate petals and clung tightly to the thorns in my side until

Gravity forced them loose and you watched them drop to the floor.

The roses made you feel alive, and yet the blade cut into me deeper

than any barbed carefully placed slash I could ever imagine presenting

and only sheer will stopping me from being a stain

more permanent than a drop of blood limply jumping from a thorn.

Mentally I smile, for why should I cry at my own nick,

The puncture I created just to feel something other

than the Time I profess to have left, especially if Time

is spent tending too many roses.

The bed in which I lay is mine to stain

And as the roses grow ever more scarlet I wonder

for whom I shed a tear, my life offering roses in which are turned down

or you, high in your sanctimony offering me another provoked incision…

Ian D. Hall 2014.