As delicate as a dusky rose,

Her scent was just as sweet.

Her laugh as bright as the day

Golden hair shimmered like the sun.

 

I watched from afar

A schoolboy caught

And thrown into orbit

Around her star.

 

I longed to reach out

To touch the petals

Of that rarest rose

To savour every silken inch.

 

But I was young

And fear gripped me,

Stayed my hand

And held me back.

 

If I were to try and hold this flower

Would she resist my touch?

Burn me with the shame

Of rejection?

 

Would her thorns pierce my flesh?

A mechanism for her protection?

Or would she turn her face to me,

As a flower does the sun?

 

The answers to these questions,

I will never know.

For every flower in nature

Must bloom and prosper and grow.

 

And so my dusky rose

Turned her face to the sun

And I watched,

Numb with love and fear

Knowing I was not

The one she chose.

 

Time though,

 Is the greatest healer

And has given me others

 To hold close

 

But in those quiet moments

When I sit alone and reflect

I think about my childhood crush

And my delicate dusky rose.