The Rose Contemplations #5: Rose of Unravelling Regrets

You wait patiently as I struggle to stay with my own breath. Thoughts block awareness and litter my mind, like the tiny wild strawberries suspended like unknown planets at your feet. I run through my body from head to toe to convince myself that I am not my mind, but something in me is still unwilling. You wait at the portal, one of your heads bowing to the heat of the first morning sun. You already are what I seek, yet you know that I must discover it myself.

You are like my regrets: unforgiving as the carpet of thorns that covers your stems, so that there is nowhere I can grip without getting hurt; unravelling as I behold you, your colors dividing into a spectrum—of white, magenta and flamingo pink—like my original premises. You overpower the pain and uncertainty with the aroma of a pasha’s palace that infiltrates the surface of the coffee table before me, where exotic painted flowers take form in the tiles.

Your leaves cup each of my regrets like a raindrop, an offering to our sun god. Maybe they will evaporate, and then all that will be left is you and me in this temple of being.