Beautifully pink they were.
Fresh.
Untouched. Those roses.
Wrapped and ribboned.
Leaning sadly against a green garbage bin.
That's not the company for a bunch of flowers still not dead.
Somebody sent them.
To someone.
For something.
Every flower brings a message.
What was it?
Who rejected them?
Was it misread?
An apology not accepted?
A birthday missed?
Love not answered?
Allergy?
Policy?
Misery?
If I had spoken rose-language I would have sat down
next to the bouquet
and asked what the matter might have been.
Flowers are funerals.
And birthdays.
I once, long ago, gave a woman a rose.
To say I love you.
She gave it back to me.
I didn't know if she meant I love you too.
Or if it was a gesture of not caring for flowers very much.
Or maybe she wasn't in love at all?
Although we didn't break up, it broke my heart a little.
She broke off the flower, and threw the stem away.
She gave the flower back to me.
Roses have thorns.
I didn't know what to do with the stem-less flower.
The rose without thorns.
Was throwing the sharp-pointed stem away a message I never quite understood?
I still don't know if my rose was in vain.
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