Do You Know the Color of the Roses?

Despite the display of glittering chandeliers, overflowing fountains of champagne, and decadence that seemed to ooze from every corner of the room, my attention was caught. The floor beneath felt unsteady, ready to split in two and swallow me up inside. Falling, I think I was falling. It was a face I knew well from my dreams. In moments, the room seemed to turn upside down. The chandeliers were hanging from the floors, the orchestra puppeteered the room from up on the ceiling. The grey walls seemed to blur to smoke. My heart beat ascended. My thoughts, undone. I was consumed, utterly consumed. Flower petals cascaded to the floor, like falling stars. The stem in my hands, and the scrape of thorns, my only anchor to my body. All I could hear was her voice, replaying in my mind. It was the anthem to which my pulse pounded. I could think of nothing more than the emotions she unraveled from me. Certainly, I’d never felt anything like it. And now, here she was. My spine pulled itself taut, my head inclined. ‘Just be normal,’ I told myself a hundred times over, as a deep breath rattled me, and I cooled my features. ‘It doesn’t matter’. It was a record that outplayed every logical thought in my head. It felt like I was losing myself to it. Carefully crafted indifference painted my face as her gaze caught mine. I looked away, sheepishly. ‘I’m fine,’ I told myself. Pluck. Another petal found its way to the floor. Pluck. The room swayed and lurched, a mess of mist and fog with her at the center. Nothing else seemed to matter. The obsession was all-consuming, it burned me up from the inside out. Pluck. Her courtiers laughed, with another strike of her wit. Pluck. For months now, she filled my head, my every waking moment. Pluck. She owned me now. Pluck. Every thought was an apparition, and when it took form, it took hers. Pluck. A drop of blood traced down the stem. Pluck. As the last petal fell away, I knew in my heart, I was utterly and completely full of rancor and loathing, a picture with her painted at the center.