Roses
Smell so soft
Yet sting at the ***** of a finger
Everyone loves you
When you're a rose
But
Would everyone love a rose
That’s not a rose
Does a name
Determine who we are
Does our point of view
Change when we hear a name
A stranger
So lovely and sweet
With a strange name
Change
When titles become thorns and looks become petals and we’re all
Growing on the same bush
Some of us pink
Others white
A couple a glossy red
Who’s the gardener that has the right
To cut you when you wilt
Why not try to help them lift their chin
Instead of knocking them down
And let them be brown
Don’t be the gardener
Keeper of pretty
Yet ally of sorrow.
Let sorrow change you
Not break your walls of
Hope
Hope becomes lost
When cut
From the vine where everyone else
Thrives

Instead of going to trim
Water, ****, and feed
Help grow

I envy the planter,
Yet despite the gardener
Don’t tear- tear


-Katja Theobald Christensen