Three years ago, the summer fire charred fragile shoots into thick strong stems as it smoked the meadows green.  The flame found itself quenched by an aura of ice; the thick grove of winter roses in which we sat.  You and I.  Brushing each other’s cheeks with combs of white, cuddled in a cocoon of perfume, we sang our laughter into the stems, and laughed our song into the petals.  In our haven we floated, until murky uncertainty and dreams flowed and converged into a roaring river, a silver ribbon billowing between the planets.  The Great Magician gave us a tour under the wing of his velvet cape, and you and I, we reached into the cape to grasp the laughing stars.

The fall murmured the blues of multicolored leaves rippling across the unseen mystic meadows.  Melancholy thunderstorms of tears boomed spontaneously and radioactive emotion flashed across the sky, cracking apart the chilly stiffening velvet star cape we had been shielded under.  You and I.  The streaks of water rolled down a tapestry of warped scenery, hot and cold down my windowpane, tearing pain into the window of my heart.  My numbed skull wistfully recalls memories of us, of me, lying on my back next to you sighing, “I wish life was a constant miracle.”

You plucked up a winter rose, roots and all. “Then miracles would not exist,” you sniffed the delicate scent as you gingerly peeled off the petals, and scattered them to the fickle wind, delighted at its fortune. Then you uprooted another flower stalk.

I roll my eyeballs in weak sockets now, shifting my gaze to two withered winter roses on my desk.  The flowers pump bitter honey into my chest, overflowing and snaking into the heart of the crinkled blooms, the thick gooey rope yanking my chest forwards.  The acrid honey gnarls my hands and I watch my fingers clutch and crumble a petal. They are iron digits as I claw, and then a jagged rip…and a roughly sewn scar in my heart.  Something whirs in my mind and soon I am egging the honey on, bitter love ripping and sewing, ripping and sewing my heart into a misshapen lump of hardened wood as flower petals aggregate into a pile on the hardwood floor.

Then, breathing hard, I clench my eyes into slits, and through my narrow field of sight, I discover a sliver of paper perching between the flower stems.  The paper pulls me in by the skull until the textured surface inks words into my tear-washed eyes: “When life is lacking in miracles, throw open your bedroom window.”

My bedroom window stands asleep, heavily curtained and covered for ancient clock-worn ages.  But now, I trip over to the window, tear away the curtains and lift

Open,

Away,

Up.

The sunset piggyback-rides the first tendrils of snowflakes down to earth, the galloping winter icy fire thawing gnarled woody stems into fragile shoots as it smoothens the meadows with white icing.  The flame finds itself fueled by an aura of ice, the ever-thickening grove of winter roses in which we had sat.  You and I.

What I see on my windowsill brushes scented bliss onto my cheeks and a cold-presses a tinkling melody out of the flowers.  The silently roaring river ebbs to a rustling trickle, steady clarity and everlasting dreams running side by side as I crawl my fingers up into the cape of stars in front of the watchful smiling silent eyes.  White petals smooth over the bumps of my thawed heart as my gaze alights upon two freshly uprooted and intertwined stalks, serene.

Winter roses.