The Odor of the Roses

The beautiful homeless black lady wrote about her pain on cobwebs while she sewed her raveling sweater together with tattered yellow sorrow. Her thoughts left shadowy tracks, as timeworn bare feet trod over dusty stone covered paths like a sled over broken glass.

The sad telltale hours of her disillusioned existence were written between the lines of infinity, and echoed into the dust-filled heated air, but no one heard it, or cared.

This was not the life she imagined, she had hopes of it being better than her sorrowful childhood: A rusted cart filled with scraps of glass, metal and broken memories, stands by her side as she sits on a broken bench where rusting nails attach her to the cruel world. 

Red roses, in her dark and weathered hand, drip blood the color of the rose, and send a faint rusted odor into the air as the thorns dug into her flesh. The pain in her eyes and body hides hidden behind the odor of the roses so no one knows.