The Thing With Petals We Call Love

The blooming rose,

Once a bright red,

Is now discoloured,

By the cluster of small,

Black bugs,

Nibbling away bit by bit,

Tearing her to shreds.

The opening wounds,

Spotting the rose,

Break and decay over time,

Life now gone,

All that is left,

a husk,

One who cannot breathe,

Or even say goodbye.

My vision blurred by tears,

My heart tight,

My hands,

Straining,

Grasping at,

The whistling petals

Torn away by dark winds.

I think of my mother,

The one who loved me first,

The woman who treasured me most,

And how the time has come,

For her life to end,

Too weak and brittle

To share her final words.

I mourn her;

I resent her absence.

The rich aroma of her cooking,

The warmth of her hugs,

The aching joy in her laugh,

Her everlasting light, taken from me.

All that lasts,

Are my withering memories,

Of her sick and desperate.

The good memories are older,

Prone to change,

Decay,

And complete destruction.

There is no cure for grief;

There is no remedy for fading memories.

The rose cannot bloom again,

But the petals can be dried,

And revitalised.

Not a complete image of the life it once held,

But enough to evoke,

The image of her in my heart.

There will come a day I forget her true smile,

The blooming blush of her cheeks,

The bright patterns of her clothes,

The sickly sweet perfume she wore,

But I will always remember

How she shaped me

Into who I am,

Today.