Red Roses

I’m not crazy or mentally insane, no matter what they’ve been saying to me. I’m going to tell you right away none of this was my fault. Whatever she said to you, it’s not true. None of it is. She’s a liar, and sometimes I’m even a liar, and this world is just full of liars. I can’t stand it. It makes my head hurt like it’s about to explode. Which it will, someday, because I’m a ticking time-bomb that can’t be disarmed.

Her name was Rose. We were in love in the worst kind of way. Flirty eyelashes would bat at me, beckoning me to go closer to her. I should’ve turned and ran, as far as I could go, because I’m wrapped around her perfectly little manicured finger now and I can’t escape. She’s trapped me, though. She blinded me with lust for her. So beautiful and wise and perfect, mixed with a dark side full of evil. I didn’t know this at the time, though, or else I would’ve never gone down this road of destruction.

I never really had any hobbies before I met her. Then she shined the light and I found out what fun was.

First, it started with my skin. The flames would lick at it, leaving a trail of scorched blackness in its wake, blistering purple and hot to the touch. The smell of burning flesh would fill the air and it was something I came to love. Maybe I loved it even more than Rose.

It might’ve started with just myself, but the hunger begged for more, insatiable. Always whispering in my ear about how much joy I would get from burning my family to the ground. Sure, it was exalting, but I needed more. I couldn’t just stop there. What would the point of that be?

Whenever I burned things, my heart would literally stop and I could literally feel the blood in my veins, filled up with adrenaline.

The light blurring the night sky was something to be admired. You couldn’t get close to me without being sparked like a flare. People were like a torch to light my path to life, still are. I couldn’t breathe without ashes filling my lungs.

Rose and I were going to get married. A little white church with a steeple was the perfect setting. Perfect to burn it down and run for our lives. We could go down in history, the psycho-lovers that were just so smitten. Then maybe we would’ve had a honeymoon in front of a fireplace. We would admire it and wonder how people could keep such a great thing so controlled, not letting it live up to its full potential. Such a shame.

That never happened though, because Rose left me. She used me for as long as she needed and when she got fed up and sick of me, she was gone in an instant. She framed me for what she did to finish the job of breaking my heart, if I had one.

I did before she came along. It’s all her fault.

It was just a nice family having a picnic in the park. Grandparents, parents, children, aunts, and uncles; everyone was there. We followed them home, Rose and I, poured the gasoline, lit a match, and boom. It was like fireworks on a crisp, summer night of 4th of July.

Rose forced me to do it, I promise.

Did she really, though? I’m not sure; I’m a liar too, just like the rest of the world. What an awful place to live in. Face it; we’re all stuck here until we die.

I wish there was a word that meant love and hate, because I would use it to explain my feelings now for Rose. Maybe they do in other languages, but there will never be any language that explains that woman. It’s probably better that way.
***

I am a nurse at a psychiatric hospital. I have been taking care of the same man for the past ten years. He never moves from his spot in his wheelchair. He doesn’t have legs anymore due to an explosion. I bring him food for every meal and give him his medicine every day. He doesn’t talk, just stares out the window. He has scars from awful burns that litter all over his body. He was ordered to a mental hospital instead of going to jail for arson, a pyromaniac, because he is clinically insane. He killed an entire family and tried blaming his girlfriend, who he never named. They could never find her.

Each time before I leave after doing the regular routine, I do the same thing I’ve been doing for the past ten years. I leave a new rose in the vase, the only colorful thin in this man’s life.