Training Roses

  I learned to love by punishment,
  When I learned the second time.
  In the disappointed faces who expected me to know,
  How to be myself again,
  I was shown what not to do.

  There had been growth undesirable in civilized gardens,
  A piece of cold iron fortified itself within my stem,
  Making the thorns sharper and skin shielded.
  A punishing blossom behind briars and thatch.
  A cruel pruning was required.

  She would look at me with her shearing eyes,
  When I would prick her skin,
  Cutting back down to the healthy flesh,
  Her gaze was irresistible torture,
  I hated the thorns out of place in a garden of peace.

  It took years of blood and persistence,
  The rest of the garden withered in negligence,
  The gardener unfailingly being pricked and bled,
  Returning with indefatigable love,
  To prop me up and train me upright.

  When the last iron thorn stopped growing,
  The sun warmed the cold metal and it bowed.
  The gardener had won her battle,
  She had lost the joy for what she once held passion,
  Leaving the garden she cried.

  I will always bloom for her.