They are the only ones who know me. I am the only one who knows them. Three red roses with jagged stems and crimson petals like luxurious satin. Three who stand out among the dull brown bushes. Three scarlet treasures surrounded by dried up, lifeless shrub. From the sidewalk, people notice them, but others walk past and fail to recognize their cryptic beauty.

Their artistry is rare. They protect themselves with briery green thorns. They blossom and they wilt and rise from the earth with their delicate ruby petals and manifest among a tiresome mess of weeds and never withhold their luster. This is how they bloom.

Let one forget his reason to blossom, they’d all rot like their neighboring vines, brown and wearisome. Bloom, bloom, bloom, they say when I weep. They flourish.

When I am too somber and too heartsick to blossom, when I am a tiny bud among so many weeds, then it is I look at roses. When there is nothing left to cure my apathy. Three who grew despite wiltering greenery. Three who blossom and do not forget to blossom. Three whose only reason is to bloom and bloom.