UNREQUITED

Bev Clark. Winner. @Poetryblast! 2021

 

The roses you bought me, lasted for weeks:

All through February’s grey, their crimson faces

smiled on my somber room.

 

From those first days, when tight buds

teased soft petals to display

their ballerina dresses,

the leafy danseur-stems

stood tall in the crystal vase.

 

But you never came.

 

My bed, as empty as my heart.

Your broken promises, strewn

like yellowing leaves, fallen.

Yet still they bloomed: more red than passion,

than danger, than blood,

laughing their red-hot distain

at my ashen, wilting heart: my withering hope of love.

 

Still, you never came.

 

Whispering scorn from their contemptuous sill,

the spring outside smiled back, yet still –

you never came.

Now my scissors cut-

Severed heads bleed petals

to a stone-cold floor.

With crimson screams

their beauty is no more.