Petals of a Withered Rose

Alone on an empty park bench
Staring down
Into hands grasping to a withering rose
One whose petals lost their luster long ago

It's fading, this she knows
But still she holds tight to the thorns
Holding on and refusing to let it go
Still trying to find the beauty lost
The life lost
Trying to find the reason
Hidden deep within the faded petals

Why does she hold on
What does she think she'll find
Why put herself through the pain
She is only a child
How could she hope to understand

As time wastes away
No one but her can understand why
She searches for what she will never find
Or maybe she will
The pointless endeavors of an ignorant child


Days pass on as the always have
And no one pays any notice
To her story unknown
Why should they care
To how she seems to fade with every petal that falls
Their own problems took precedence
No one had the time to understand
Why the girl is holding a withered rose all alone

She sits alone
As her search is coming to an end
Petals fall from her hands landing softly on the ground
With every petal
She slowly begins to understand

A week passes
The sad girl with the withered rose
Sits there no more
And the park bench sits empty once more

Now those too busy to stop and understand
Who cared not of the child
Huddle round an empty bench
Staring at a pile of petals
Covered in drops of blood from puncture wounds

Whispers start to stir

What happened to her
Was she taken, hurt, or worse
Did she………………
What happened to the poor sad girl
Why didn't anyone help

Silence takes the air
As they ponder their hypocrisy in their words

They shiver in surprise
As a voice breaks the cold silence
A little voice from the back
Heard above the now concerned

"She is dead, like the rose you see before you"
"That's her blood, she hung on as long as she could"
"But in the end, she died, faded away, like the rose, she died"

Silence  enveloped the crowd once more
As the child skipped away singing
And still they didn't understand
Even when she told them herself

So in the end
A child saw what it was all about
It only took a withered rose
And some bitter pain
For her to understand

All it took was time
Saw what everyone else fears and tries to escape
And left it all behind
In a pile of bloody petals on the ground
She has moved on