Paper roses

My paper roses litter the floor
Drawling of long ago, yellowed and torn
Creating an island with a never ending shore.
They promise me they won’t morn.
Living images of what never will be
Floods of paper roses in an endless sea

They comfort and scare me
They are easily forgotten and soon remembered
Their destiny is mindless potpourri
Easily destroyed and dismembered
Yet I can’t hurt them
I cherish and hate them

Enticed by hopeless needs
My paper roses leave me taking all light with them.
My world bleeds paper roses.
A thorn of hate on every stem
They haunt every dream
Hopes in a concentrated stream

My pencil produces them with ease
They multiply upon my paper
A nuisance, a disease.
Disappearing with the coming light into a vapor
Paper roses drift from my mind
Until the perfect moment they should find.

Paper roses will soon return.
They will remember what they left behind.
Deep in my heart a hole they burn
They have left my heart senseless and blind
It pains me so
To see them come and go.

I wish they would stay and be mine forever
I cannot keep them to myself
To keep them I would have to be clever
I try and trap them on a shelf
Instead I chose to share paper roses
And on me the whole world closes.