I have a bouquet of roses in my room, sitting there on the nightstand in a novelty cup from the county fair. I didn’t put them there. My grandmother did. In a modest act of selflessness.
They’ve been there for months now. Petals curled and crumpled into wearied wisps, spun-sugar petals, still fragrant with the memories of spring, these cold fragile petals. The water, clouded and bitter and tainted with death, but those dilapidated roses hold their color. Deeper now, even, that tragic hue, like the beauty in the broken eyes of age. Bleeding out into the air.
I’ve watched their masks fall away for weeks. I didn’t pull or tug. They just opened themselves up, a metamorphosis into something so wild and raw. There is something pure about it. I can see every vein, every sharp vivid blemish like the rough stroke of a brush heavy with color and oil. This humble beauty growing up out of chaos. Brittle and weak, but there they stand.
I let them die. So why do they still look so beautiful?
