“I bought you some flowers,”

What exactly does a rose mean?
To you, it might be the flower
That’s been in your front lawn since you were a child.
It’s that flower your mother told you never to touch,
Because even though it was beautiful,
Petals like velvet, leaves like crisp candy, thorns like small knives,
It still hurt you, and if you touched those thorns,
You would bleed.

To some people, roses are just a tradition.
Happy Anniversary! I’ve bought you roses,
They’re pink, like your favorite color!
Happy Valentines Day! Fantastic Job!
What have you.
Some people get roses all the time.
Roses for this and that,
Maybe they grow them, but
Who even likes roses that much to grow them?

The roses mean nothing;
You could have bought a necklace, or chocolate.
To me, roses have always meant nothing.
They were interchangeable with chocolate,
I was lucky if I ever got a necklace,
But it was always chocolate,
Or roses.

I was hoping he would never give me roses.
It wouldn’t mean a thing to me.
Except that’d he’d become another something,
Just another boy who bought me chocolate.
Just another person who thought that roses meant love,
or that things could change when someone received roses.
I never wanted him to give me roses.
He’d mean nothing, just like the roses meant nothing,

“I bought you some flowers,”
“How did you know I loved roses?”
“Who doesn’t love roses?”

Who knows, maybe roses do change things.