I reach forth underneath and past the stars, trumpets blazing, with just enough strength to sprout beneath the dirt

I am a rose curving upward

A confused flower that lets loose a single leaf

Pointed toward the sun, open and free of care

So sure that the sludge meant summer

Where a cherry’s laugh and the sweet wall of the sloping hillside

Signaled the tenderness and fire of the sky’s love wrapped ‘round my vulnerable center

But the air, stained with black ink and arial font

Seeps into all of my crevices, sucked in through a spot in my roots

It isolates the cracks in my window and wishes me dead as it encircles my mouth

I am weak and ashamed that my exhausted cries pierce only deaf and hidden caves

My petals will ache forever with the hurt

and the love

They try to persevere through the shiver and slouch from the work

To not let the pride of the wind press me, cut me, leave me too limp from fear

They’ve already been bent by the weight of the snow, squeezed of its hope

Now it’s only a matter of time before history repeats itself

And Winter will wonder and question why another rose’s smile

Was beaten by a door and won with a cross

No longer visible as she thinks to herself to take cover and wait until he subsides