To Know a Rose

There once was a time when I got to know the rose.
It grew ‘neath the moonlight and

It had too many thorns.

Its bloom shone like lava
Pouring into the milky sky;
Its bloom shone like the ocean
Before I should surely die.
I noticed it there surrounded 

By hoards of parasites,

All covered in slime that brought me nausea,

The color of abuse.
I uprooted it there so carefully,

Careful as I could

To rescue the shining beauty
Like I thought I should.

I loved it completely and then I fell;

I fell deeply into a spell;

For the echoes of its beauty filled me

With ripples of tidal hell �"

No �" 

The flower was only ever a flower

Behaving like a looking glass

With which I, a wizard, 

Cast, deep and down, myself a fool �"

Deeper and deeper into a chasm of 

Naivety that became the mist

Through which I could not see �"

Blinded by my own two eyes,

The eye,

The I �"

That I know now was not me.

All flowers are meant to be seen

Though left not upon the shelf

For if, by chance, ears graze petals

You hear only yourself.