blood on my fingertips

When I was young, I pricked myself on a rose thorn.

The foolish and naive me at that time wondered how something so alluring could be so deceptively fatal.

As I grew up, slowly but surely, I began to have a fondness for pain.

Because I had come to know that the prettiest things are always the ones that hurt you the most.

There's something in the pain that I crave.

It's the way that roses are so innocent and so lovely even as they lie to you and tear you apart.

And I loved every last petal that fell from their bud. Plucked, dried, kept away in a box, and still seemingly eternal after all that.

And I loved their scent that lingered no matter how many times I wash the sheets.

And I loved how they blushed and bloomed underneath my touch, red or pink or white or peach.

I loved them all, god damn it.

However, it was only until now that I thought about it.

Maybe I loved them because I was unable to forget the first time I shed blood on my fingertips.

None of them had ever come close to the only rose that I wished to rip and crush and burn with my own two hands.

It's a shame.

A real shame.

If only she hadn't wilted away before I had the chance to.