White Roses

         You covered the church with white roses. Everywhere I turned, the obtrusive flower had grown, through the windows and doors and cracks in the floor. They grew and grew until they crept up my dress and covered my mouth and choked me into silence. I was like a child hovering in a doorway, unable to go forward or back. Just stuck, watching the flowers grow and grow until everything else had been drowned by their white noise. I wanted to stay where I was. I wanted to be still and quiet as the world never is.
         But you are not made for standing still. You race. You race and you take me with you. And why should you not? You are set for life. You have succeeded everywhere you have gone. Although I was reluctant and hesitant, you took me with you. You are generous and good. But I am selfish. I am needy. I am the moment before the rain. I am not made for racing, and you always are.
         I tried to speak. But these roses covered my mouth and I allowed myself to be taken along. You gave me hearts pearls and love but I gave you deceit. It was a very great despair that bubbled inside of me. I did not know it was possible to live while dead. I was there with you. I saw what you saw and heard what you heard. But part of me was here, still stuck, still waiting for a new, redeeming breath. I saw my whole life being devoured before me and could not stop it. I tried once. I did. Please believe me I tried to tell you before this. But the silence that had promoted belief had festered within you. You would not listen. I screamed and shook and you heard nothing. Sometimes I would pretend that I could disappear. But although I could make my mind, my heart, my dreams and the rest of me disappear, I could not get my hands too. Delicate, white hands wearing rings floated in front of me like a warning. A warning that I could not disappear. That somehow, when I had looked the other way, my life had gotten away from me and had yanked me along. My hands were a reminder that I was still here.
         Was it possible for me, I wondered, to awaken? Could I enjoy the feel of the air, the light ever again? I thought not. But this morning, in the cold light of dawn, I saw a way out. Voices like mine, but indifferent, inhuman, gave me a way to cast you from me. Don’t you see that I cant marry you? A white fire built up within me like poison, fire that burned down my life and my identity until I was nothing but a pair of ghostly hands. Forgiveness is not often beautiful. It is hard fought for, it comes out of an evil, it struggles to survive. But oh, when it is beautiful--!
         You shall be hurt. You will crumple the note I left you, tell the pastor that there is no bride. But there will be. You are beautiful and young and whole. I was simply a girl who could not even maintain the poorest façade. Pleas believe me, you and I would have grown bitter and empty in years of nothing but each other. I would not have been enough for you. I can not. But now we will both blossom like the blood red rose. You shall heal and I shall be nothing but a faded, crumpled memory fading into the night sky. And you will marry a girl who is not me, and who will not mind white roses and love to race with you. And I shall drink red wine and breathe in the free air.
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