The Rose Wept

The rose wept.

“Why are you afraid to hold me?”
The rose said to its lover.
And the lover, nursing wounds, replied,
“Do you not see what your love has done to me?”

The rose attracts, the thorn repels, and yet,
we touch them, grow them, love them anyway.
And when they wound us, we find a band aid.
We say to ourselves what else can I expect, tinkering among thorns?
Or perhaps, this is just the price I must pay for my passion.
Even we humans know, lashing out at a rose for piercing our skin
is like beating our head against a brick wall
to rid us of a headache. 

But wounding each other; wow, that’s something entirely different. 

We spend a lifetime trying to teach each other not to prick,
punishing each other for causing harm, for being desirable,
for luring us into false expectations
that love does not come with pain.
But didn’t someone famous once say,
“A rose, by any other name, ....”
                                                           
We have all been delicate as roses and prickly as thorns,
often, we are both at once.
Perhaps we’d all get along better
if we treated each other
as delicate living things
who prick sometimes
when we are grabbed or manipulated,
or treated without care.

And when we are pricked,
for we will be if we are brave enough to love,
perhaps we could blame less, and examine more,
the way in which we approached
this delicate being, our beloved. 

We blame one not for loving the rose,
not for impatience to see it bloom,
not for yearning to caress its petals,
but for being careless or hasty in one’s approach. 
We know it makes little sense to blame the rose, don't we? 

Maybe, we can begin to learn to love
ourselves and each other 
with the same care and respect
and most of all, to learn to accept love
as the rose accepts sunshine and rain;
undeserved, and unexpected,
but thankfully received nonetheless.