Roses Will Never Tame Your Heart

The barren swath of land where
so many delicate flowers were born,
then swept away as ideas and metaphors
to symbolize love and the purity of romance.

Oh, this rose I know so well as red
and causes passions to swell within
my head, as I think of how it could inspire
you to share with me all of your sweet embrace.

How far removed from the earth
is that which we hold as powerful
tokens meant to gesture the deepest
emotions and invoke the closest of relations?

I give to you without thorns
flowers I purchased in the endless
lines of grocery stores, right behind others
who feel as though they are part of something more.

I feel thus emboldened by packaging
all these feelings inside of me leaving me
as petals falling off a dying rose, because when
I hand you card and flowers you still know not my love.