Tone Exersize

Today, I found a rose. I like to be barefoot here, with pine-needles engraving waves, impressionistic winds, or maybe tally-marks into ankle-bones and cross-legged bare thighs, but even with my filthy leather mary-janes beside me, I feel far too clothed. I can’t breathe deeply enough to taste the air; this dress is just a little bit too tight around my chest for that.
So, I unzip the side, since I’m alone here, anyways. I try to breathe again, deeply, and still taste nothing - maybe forgotten coffee, which I do like, on the edges of my tongue - not air. I look down at my flower, at my paper, at my flower again. I picked it already, earlier on in the walk, in order to have something good to fidget with while on the search for something here worth writing about.

I picked it, so it’s barely even nature anymore.

It’s beautiful, my rose, which means my less than natural hands will defy my head and heart again by utterly destroying it. Right in this moment, it’s only missing three petals. They’re silky, light red and bleed a darker version when I squeeze one hard between my thumb and index finger. I scrape at it a little with my chewed up nails; it occurs to me: not many people notice the meaty flesh of flower petals - the part that stains your fingerprint, so that at night you look back down and remember how capable those hands are at destroying everything that’s beautiful. I’m getting a bit dramatic now . . . The flower itself, though slightly lopsided, looks happy. If the once firm stem hadn’t wilted moments ago, I’m sure this rose would be a perfect rose for twirling, and if I were to twirl it fast enough the missing petals wouldn’t matter anymore. In a twisted attempt at revitalization, I pull away another petal; maybe if it looked less uneven it would look more whole again. And for one brief moment, I have a smaller, sweeter version of the perfect flower that began, but I think “its not nearly right - not yet” and keep pulling.

And so that's all.
for today.

xx Monique