THORNS OF A WHITE ROSE



Every rose has its thorns.

The things we most adorn

make us wish we were never born

sometimes and we’re torn



Between happiness and sadness

bloom and gloom

progress and regress

nectar and poison



It’s hard to tell the difference

when you’re hoodwinked by promises:

We smooth out the blemishes

to remain within the premises



that they construct for us and entice us with

and remind us about every time they hurt us

to divert us and subvert the curt attacks they blurt



as if they have no weight on the people who hear them.

What are we to do when those who we see so brightly

descend into daily and nightly cycles of frightening actions or lack thereof?



White typically represents purity or peace,

but to me it’s innocence.



We lose our innocence in so many ways and stages,

and when significant others come around, 



we suspend our disbelief about ever being able to find it again.



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Love is about letting your instincts go,

going against your rationality and giving yourself to another;

whereas for a brother or a mother

there’s security in the familial certainty with the other,



when you surrender your pragmatism and your desensitization

to the abominations of your past, the problems in your present, and the worries about your future,



you put so much hope on another person

to suture your uncertainty and negativity

with the positivities of infatuation, companionship and support.



We look to our partners not only to reinforce

our steadfast selves hardened by reality



but also to catch us when our foundations give

and we find ourselves in free-fall.



That’s the security we strive for from significant others, where the mothers and brothers and fathers and daughters of the world come with predetermined expectations and trepidations about us based on who they know us to be.



This comfort we derive from our underlying reciprocities of respect and understanding and forgiveness is distinctive in that it is built from the ground-up,



and it’s not a birthright, nor an expectation, but a privilege, a blessing and often also a curse.



That emulation of innocence between those intensely involved is the best escape, the best comfort one could ever find.



It makes us feel unstoppable and together in our fight again and again against the world. 



That strong communion gives every couple a collectively idiosyncratic arrogance. A bond we fortify over time with declarations of love and gift exchanges and reassurances to show the other our seemingly unwavering commitment as we are now and as we will be “forever.”



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Unfortunately, this childlike reenactment of innocence is a false equivalence to what’s actually possible.



And as the cloud of our initial manic desire fades to unveil the desensitized, pragmatic, uncertain people behind the fog,



we’re hit with reality again, and that supposedly unbreakable bond gets tested and bent and challenged by circumstance, temptation, frustration and more-so by the sheer humanity of the other and of the self.



Any two humans who coexist so closely cannot possibly do so in perfect harmony.



it’s a tough pill to swallow that the deep roots planted by the seeds you sow grow into roses with beautiful, blossoming petals at the top and stems with dangerous thorns that hold them up.



The most beautiful roses are the most dangerous. Not because of any physical properties — the thorns aren’t any sharper nor, are they harder to uproot,



but what gets you is that initial manic desire to grasp that dazzling white rose.



To desperately cling to your “other half” is to accept the thorns piercing your skin, making you gush blood and scream and cry and thrash with burning passion.



It doesn’t matter whether it’s out of love or hatred because the true antidote to love is indifference.



Resentment and anger for someone’s flaws or wrongdoings isn’t a scathing rejection of them, but rather a desperate projection of our frustration

with their deviation from the ideal picture we paint of them with the brush of our innocent desire.



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It’s even tougher to attempt to remove these roses than it is to hold on. It’s tough enough to take on the pain of thorns in your palm,



but it’s impossible to remain calm when you try to thrust your hand from the earth with each and every root of that rose, the bond you’ve built over time.



Every happy memory, every nickname, every gift, every thought, every story

acts as a gory resistant to your resolve to be existent without the comfortable poison that’s befallen you. 



So you try and you pull but it hurts so you stop and their false security tricks you to give up and drop whatever the trigger was that set off your attempt at remaining exempt from a life of turmoil



and as the frogs in the pot come to boil

as the roots of our trust deepen

and the petals and thorns grow above soil,



we get cooked alive in this zero-sum-game.

Friends give up, family gives up, and we suffer.

We’re left without a buffer,

unable to get tougher to fight against



not the other, not the ones we can’t change, but against ourselves, and our own conceptions of the roses in our lives and what they have to offer.



the strength of the roots are a double-edged sword.

They kept us together in times of distress

but now they bind us together when we’re too far gone.



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The lawns of our lives, forever blighted by regret

are disrupted whenever we make trysts in secret

to salvage that which faded long ago.



As resentment grows and lovers become foes, 

we withstand the throes of each others’ blows



And although the problems and the red flags stay stuck under your nose, you desperately cling onto that pure innocent white rose and disregard the thorns that bleed you out every day from when you wake up till the second your eyes close.



That final pull against the roots and the thorns and the laughs and the happy times and the poison that’s befallen you is by far the hardest one to overcome



In one swift movement, you become weightless but also aimless and nameless and faceless without the anchor of that rose that was supposed to remain in your garden forever.



And as that forever becomes never, and you resist their attempts to be clever, and you promise friends and family you won’t ever hurt yourself like that again,



you emerge into the light at the end of the

treacherous tunnel you were trapped in, bloody hand in tow,



and step into a world of uncertainty with no idea where to go.



~FIN~