Like a rose has its thorns, there is something called love.

A beautiful flower,
A delight to the senses.
It yearns for attention, 
It calls out your name. 

A radiant rose, 
Gratification to the heart. 
It seeks your touch, seducing your mind;
Yet, surrounded by thorns, you scruple to surrender. 

The thorns hold you back. 
As they prick you, you start to bleed.
They protect the flower but they won’t let you near. 

The thorns suppress you, 
For they make you bleed, piercing you deep down your soul.
They safeguard the rose, nevertheless they fill your heart with fear.

When you look at love, you see beauty. 
When you feel love, you feel its soft and gentle caress. 
When you’re pricked by its thorns you feel pain,
The pain that causes your heart to bleed and your soul to cry. 

When you look at love, you see splendor.
When you feel love, you feel its smooth and delicate tenderness. 
When you embrace love and it puts a hole in your heart,
You agonize from a broken heart and a shaken soul. 

Once you’ve felt the pain, 
You stand back and admire from afar;
Afraid to go near. 
Afraid to get hurt. 

Once you’ve known the anguish, 
You standalone and gaze from a distance;
In fear of getting wounded.
In fear of reopening the scars left by such a perfect sight, perfect beauty. 

You see the beauty and long to embrace it. 
You’ve felt the thorns and fear the pain. 
You’d give the beauty to stay away from the pain. 

From afar you stare at the beauty.
You want to touch it. You want to feel it. 
You want to taste it. You want to know it. 
But you stay away, for, the pain, you cannot bear. 

You see the beauty and long to embrace it. 
You’ve felt the thorns and fear the pain. 
And now you ask yourself: “Would it be really worth it?”
“Should I try to pick the flower, or should I walk away from it?”
So you try and pick it, and it stings you. 
You try again and it bleeds you.
And you try again and it softly kills your heart away. 

“How can something so beautiful and so radiant 
Bring so much pain and sorrow?”
“How can something that seems from afar so sweet and pleasant,
Taste so much bitter and awful?”
You turn and walk away,
With a broken heart with scars to stay.
And as the tear drops from the corner of your eyes, 
You look back and realize, 
“Like a rose has its thorns, 
There is something called love and it stings as bad.”

Copyright © 2009 Charles Antoine Louis, Jr. All rights reserved