a rose garden
filled with beautiful flowers
on the surface
but inside is a tangled web of thorns
every petal another lie, another
"i'm fine, i'm ok"

topiaries in twisting, beautiful shapes
all of roses
lovely on the surface
a fairy tale come true
but that's just what it is

a story

but when the flowers wilt,
when the topiaries grow wild,
the thorns grow larger until they start to stab themselves
millions of tiny punctures
as the music plays
and the petals fall
and the thorns strike the heart
and the vines grow over the corpse