Black Rose

Black Rose
By: Adam M. Snow

My dreams are broken;
these words are forever unspoken.
I know not who I am;
I know I am a rose without a stem;
a black rose that bleeds red;
my heart is full of dread.

I try to go beyond this reality;
to a place they call fantasy;
to try and find myself;
by looking for a heart shaped box left upon a shelf;
for I am a black rose that bleeds red;
it seems I am better off dead.

I am a lonely lost ghost;
nevermore will I be your host.
These wounds are but a memory of my affection;
if only you could see my broken reflection.
You caused my hands to be tainted with your blood;
now I have been swept away by this tormented flood.

You left me in solitude;
all alone, cold, and nude.
I know not what to do;
all I wanted was to be with you;
yet you spoke of broken truth;
for you have showed you're uncouth.

I have withered away;
I am no longer here to stay.
I am a black rose;
tormented by my woes.
It's just like I said;
I'm only human, I bleed red.

Reviews

[emmah]

your verse is brimming with agony, adam! it's a biting pain - irreconcilable, unfathomable, dark dark pain. the structure is rather picturesque, the rhyme seems to flow (in most places). the poignant expression of the blackness of pain is agonizingly poetic. the refrain "i am a black rose that bleeds red" in the first two stanzas is exquisitely dark. the verse left me, as a reader, with a sense of injustice, betrayal and grief; a palpable sense of the brittleness of the spirit of the narrator at this time; a spirit that seems to have been brutalized. it left me overwhelmed at the immensity and the intensity of the suffering that comes through. the last stanza, in particular - "i have withered away", "I am a black rose; tormented by my woes", "I'm only human, I bleed red" - gnawed at the spirit. the anguish is unbearable for the narrator, at the present moment. and although the verse doesn't explore the rising that follows the rock bottom, it did leave me with a solemn sense of hope - a belief, i you will - in the unquestionable ability of the human spirit to reconstruct, rebuild and rise. that very vulnerability that makes us akin to being bruised and battered gives us, in my opinion, the reason for finding the clichéd silver lining in the grimmest, darkest clouds.
yes, we bleed , we mourn and we suffer; we relinquish, we give up, we fall apart; we re-valuate, we square-up, we breathe; and we move, as life carries on it this endless pursuit; we walk again, on our cracked heels, as long as they carry us, we bleed in our struggles and we make it work. your verse made me think with a greater admiration, about the fortitude of the soul.
the brilliance of the written word lies in it's ability to move and inspire; and this exquisite expression of what looks like the narrator's darkest hour, gave me, as a reader, a redefined appreciation of pain and how it manifests itself in scarily similar patterns across varied skies.
it's moving, overwhelming, stark and brutal, this verse!

[Desert Dreamer]

A tormented black rose, this is deep sorrow you have described with your wonderful rhymes that flow so well.