Why must beauty be gentle?

Soft, pure, pastel, and delicate…

Can I not be striking, spectacularly singular?

Purple and white, a brilliant streak of energy

Tearing the sky in two and bolting down the sides.

I want to be a blazing fire; an inferno that burns away,

Not into a temperate pool of gray haze and nothingness,

But into incandescent embers

And anxious tinder that awaits re-ignition.

Behold the rose I grasp in my hand.

Continue reading →