I know a story about a Rose

I know a story about a Rose.

If you don’t think I could talk about a single flower, you are wrong.

She would wish for a rose, from anyone really. The roses she gave herself weren't enough.

She would buy a rose every week. She would nurture and love the rose in all the ways she wanted someone to do for her, to her.

A single Rose. Small pot of water by my bedside table. I know it will be a good day if the rose is still alive. The day the rose dies, she has a bad day. It became her normal. It was mysterious. Don’t remind her.

The day she forgets about the rose, the day this all ends. She took a fortune in roses. She was looking out of rose-colored glasses.

She admired the rose how she wanted to be looked at. The rose liked to be admired. A relationship of admiration formed. She didn't wilt, they were glorious together.

Not having been born a Rose is a disappointment. I fall always ceaselessly falling like my Roses petals.

Before writing and during writing to you I looked at my fragile fallen rose.

“Rose is the feminine flower that gives herself wholly and such that the only thing left to her is the joy of having given herself. Her perfume is a crazy mystery. When inhaled deeply it touches the intimate depth of the heart

and leaves the inside of the entire body perfumed. The way she opens herself into a woman is so beautiful. The petals have a good taste in the mouth-all you have to do is try. Yet rose is not it but she. The scarlet ones are of great sensuality. The white ones are the peace of the God. It's very rare to find white ones at the florists”

Clarice Lispector, Água Viva.

For Her, She is the Rose and it resembles her. Once the rose dies, she mourns herself. Again & again. She keeps buying a new rose. The rose became her muse, she admired it. She admired how the rose unapologetically bloomed. What she admired most was that Her Rose took up space. She sees herself in her rose. It's all a mystery really, but there is a romance to the rose. Her femininity. What a rose represents to someone holding a rose? Without my love the rose isn't special. If only I were my own rose. She cares for the rose in all the ways she craves from not only herself, but someone else too. I'll never forget my rose, I watched her die in front of me.

There's a certain temporary feeling I get when I pick a rose and take in her delicate scent. I yearn for that transient sensation, embracing its impermanence, like my own and that of my rose.

This Rose was born in March

She stood witness to the rain speaking quietly, the voice of the moonlight, and a tender caress of warmth.

I sense my rose weeping

Whispers steeping

In my dreams i seek her beauty

Her tearful lullabies draw me in

We dance into celestial dream, its and dreamlike and pure as ever

In my dreams we talked until we found out we are the same kind.

My tenderness is my virtue

and I'm more than just a floral dream

My rose saves me from death, but I cannot save her.

Once, a rose discovered she was an instrument and her devotion whiplashed.

It was something about her intolerable tenderness?

A scent of melancholy sin

As each petal unfurled a tortured dream

A tender plea

Her fallen petals only seen in forgotten dreams

Is this when a rose becomes a woman?

I am my rose and she is me

It's always been like this, can we just talk in the language of the rose

Her silence, maybe i've only seen her talk in my dreams

I have dreams of flowers growing out of my body, I could only wish for that to come true.

by Hailey Cognetti

Hailey hid multi media art pieces in books at The Strand and Alabaster Books. They may still be there