Roses

Are you a rose in the shadows

printing words before the morn

tossing your breath out of windows

down the stairwells

in the stilling chill of the ringing

of the dawn

do the words you toss to silence

come marching back, from both sides

will they line you up on walls

to shoot you dead

all in a line

Listen

to them

falling

I ask, what do you truly long

to no longer hear

To no longer see

Does it hurt you

in your heart

does it pain your pride

to have to feel

Do they come to take your head

or is it you, who will not cease

Until the guillotine becomes the final sentence

to the catching light,

and rolling heads