Burning Gardens

We danced in fields of red roses. You spun me in circles until laughter flooded my spirit... pouring out in visions laden with sunlight and grass as green as healing emerald. I knew not where we were going. I knew not what tomorrow would look like. But I trusted in the strength of your arms, and in my childlike hope, believed we'd forever dance in these fields....

But winter came. And red turned brown. And roses died. And we were left standing on only thorns. With bloody feet, I walked with you, though. Because I knew true love meant for better or worse. In pain we suffered together with nothing but the memory of summer to cling to. And with each step you promised spring, so I kept walking. And I am walking still. Waiting for the breeze to turn warm again...

They are pointing, laughing, staring, wondering why I chase you with these bloody feet and thorns. But I tell them I remember summer. And I remember fields of bright red roses. I remember the warmth I felt, our heart racing, beating as one... And I know that it must return. Because seasons have a way of changing... scars have a way of healing. I must believe we'll taste the salt of summer again. And I must believe that we will dance again in gardens sweetly smelling of moments more beautiful than any cut could be ugly.

You will return to me in a summer rain and show me that you never really left. You will prove to me that the cold was only distracting me. I am enduring winter for the hope of spring. But I can only endure it because you are beside me. I am walking on thorns, but believing I'm walking towards our roses once again... good things have a way of returning. And the best things make the worst no longer matter.

So in this winter, I will wrap you like a coat around my freezing shoulders, and I'll let you warm me with a fire of our dead roses. I will wait for the blazing sun of summer. I wait because I know it's coming. You're going to show me beauty once again, and these cold ashes will be forgotten.