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I can feel the heat on my petals, the first strong heat. So I stretch myself out too grasp the heat before it goes away again. Oh, the bliss of a sweet heat after a shower. I think I’ll try to dry myself, and warm my fragile stem.

Against my stony earth, I can sleep away my tumultuous life, and dream, while my stone is warmed by the sun. Here, I lay with my family of thorny relatives. I being the youngest have not earned my thorns. One day, one day soon. I am of a family line of lovers roses. One day, when my thorns come in, I too will be given to a lover. From a man in love to a woman who wants all she deserves and nothing more.

I taste my sweet life line. And I drink deeply. And it is good. I can feel myself grow as though it is all I have to do. And it is all I have to do.

A man came by the garden, and he felt my petals. “Like her breath on my neck.” He walked away, but promised he’d be back.

I waste my time sunbathing. And drinking from the sweetness in the earth. I begin to feel the beginnings of thorns along my hardening stem.

“One day my little bud, you will be the most loved of them all. One day, you will be held in the greatest esteem of every woman.” He whispered this to me as he showered me with drink. He did this every day. He informed me of how I would be treasured above near all else. Few could touch the emotion that would be brought by me and my kin.
I spend my days drinking and listening to the man. Bathing in the warmth of the sun. I wished he man would come more often. He nurtured me as none other could. He spent his days talking to me. Telling me of the woman he loved. He never called her by her name. Just “My Dear.”He told me of how one day he would give me to this woman. But not yet. This woman that he so loved was not his to love. He had no right to love her, or so he told me. He talked of love so often that I believed that anyone could love anyone for any reason, or no reason at all. That is the way the man made it seem. He told me that in the hearts of the world, I represented the love of a man to a woman. I feel honored, but unable to fulfill the job he would like to task me with.
He came back today. I had just began to feel my thorns grow at their crawling pace along my fragile stem. He said that today would be my day. I knew that it would be soon. I dreaded it.
“But it's an honor, my bud, you should feel proud to do my bidding. With you alone, she will know how I feel about you. With you alone, she will know. She must. My dear.” At his statement, he walked away from me again. He came back, shortly there after, with a knife. He took this knife to my stem. My weak body. He took his knife and sawed it through my tender life. He ended my life for his love. And he wished me happiness the whole time of my demise.
He held me gently in his hands. Cradling  my stem. His thumb caressed my satin petals. He stroked me with his callused and beaten hands. He whispered to me. He told me of how I would shine, how I would make his life whole again with this simple gesture.
He put me in a simple vase of synthetic caring.  It seems that the reason he uses me as much as he does is because he can't show how much he truly does care for her. She doesn't know. That's why I am here. He is using me as his life line to a final chance for love with this girl.
He took me outside, back to my long lost home of fresh air, not tainted by the cigarette smoke embedded in his furniture. I breathed deeply, longing for the air that I couldn't feel inside to wrap around me. It had the sweet crispness of a twilit summer evening. But so soon until I was out of my sweet air, and back into the smoke filled hinderences to my life. The entire time I was inside of anything, I could feel my life draining away from me, not just seeping out, but flowing out. Like a torrent of lifelessness.
I hated this sheath he had shrouded me in. Cellophane. Crinkly and hardening. And so fake. I felt contained in a way, that wasn't natural to me. He was excited as we moved down the black and deadened lawn spanning in front of us. We went so fast, I could not take in all the twists and turns. But I knew they were there from the sloshing of the water droplets caught in our plastic prison. He took the turns faster than he should have. In his excitement he was trying to get to her house as fast as he could.
What should have been a very long trip turned out to be a short one, by far. We skidded to a stop in front of a house, barren of any garden, unlike at home where the lawn was a garden. The garden was the lawn.
He jumped up the three steps with me held tightly in his grip. I was shaken and jostled out of my cellophane keep. I was left on the ground as his grip was to tight to realize I had slipped. His focus was on seeing her fair face again. Not on the plans he had for her. For his sanity.
She opened the door with her eyes redder than my petals. Her green eyes smiled when she saw him, but her face was saddened by the events of the day. He smiled when he saw her eyes. He couldn't help it. I knew this, he had told me that it was hard to not smile when she was near him.
“Petie, what are you doing here?” She was puzzled at his plastic covered hand, and his impromptu call. He held his empty hand up to her. Expecting to see me standing tall for him. When he saw his empty hand he spun around quick as a whip and stumbled off of the stoop. Tripping over my insignificant stem. He landed flat out on his back in her gravel drive. The horrid plastic escaping when his hands flew up.
“Oh!” she cried quietly, trying to stifle a laugh, but not quite managing when a slight sound of amusement escaped her cherry lips.
She ran down the steps, graceful as a dancer, half floating down to him. She helped him stand up.
“Rach, I wanted to give you, “ He paused, reached around her, and picked me up off the steps. “I wanted to give you this.” He handed me to her. I looked at her full in the face. She was pretty. Her lips full and very kissable, while his was usually a thin line of thought.  Her hair was light, golden and long, where his was short and tussled and dark. Her eyes had a sad smile behind them. Her eyes made me realize why he couldn't stop smiling around her. It made me smile too, if I could.
But her face wasn't smiling. She looked hurt, and embarrassed. He had a hopeful smile on his face, waiting and anxious all at once.
“Peter, I told you, it's too soon. I can't. You know that.” Her tears, yet to show, rang through every word. Pain, wishfulness, and sorrow. She hated that she did this to him.
“Rach, I thought you said that you needed time, and then we'd be able? I thought that you loved me?” His voice was more than clogged. It sounded like he couldn't breathe. Like he was going to choke if she didn't save him. If she didn't take his tears away, he wouldn't be able to live without her.
He stepped away from her, his hand still extended holding me out to her. He backed towards his movement. He couldn't believe what she had said. It couldn't be possible.
His hand finally fell, and he stepped into the movement. He still had me clenched in his fist as he backed out of the gravel parking area. He sped up as fast as he could, gripping the circular thing until I could feel myself cry, it hurt so much. I felt it seeping into his grip. He felt it. He looked at me through his tear filled stare.
Then his head snapped forward. Crashing into me and his own hand. The rest of the car was approaching quickly behind him. It crumpled in on itself. His head slapped back into the seat and flipped back towards me. His hand still held me immobile. I watched the whole scene from my front row seat. Finally his hand snapped towards his body, letting me fall. As I fell I could see the front of the red movement against a tree. I fell between his feet. Resting there, I could see a liquid darker than my petals dripping from his temple. His lips formed these words as I was covered in the mass. “Not your fault my dear.”