-A Petal of Red

[Words to Image. My take on a random picture. What it's speaks to me, I write]

Every day at dusk, Tomas would walk about the land and gather the black roses of damaged hearts. He would pick them up from the streets, from the dirt, from every place they had fallen. When a heart died because 2 people failed to try anymore, he gathered them. When a marriage ended in adultery and one or both dropped their hearts, Tomas would be there to clean them up. When someone had to say goodbye for the very last time or was robbed of the opportunity to, Tomas gathered their black rose. He was very busy.

The enormity of it was too much to store so at every night's end, he would stack them in heaps and lie down in their midst. He would close both eyes and absorb their stems and petals. The roses quickly bled into his hands, his legs, his torso, and heart. It became the actual fibers of his very being. The saddened fibers that kept him going.

One day, he was busy gathering and bent down to pick up the next. But then something caught his eye.

"What is this?" he thought.

There was a faint edge of red on one of its petals. A lifetime of blackened roses had haunted him and here was this tiny sliver of color within his hand. He stared at it in amazement. Never before had this been a thing. He allowed the bundle of blackened to fall from his clutches and focused on the single beautiful black rose with its reddened petal. His eyes had left its confusion, passed through their amazement, and now brightened with joy. The longer he held it, the more each petals began to turn. He twisted it withing his grasp, watching as each of its petals morphed into a bright, brilliant glow of red. He felt the corners of his heart following suit. Turning red. He grabbed for his chest, scared of this new, foreign feeling. But it felt so wonderful.

The blackened hood around his head began to change so he slid it backwards, allowing it to fall to his shoulders. It had completely transitioned before it rested. For the first time in his existence, he could look on one of the many flowers he had gathered, with unobstructed eyes, and see the real depth of its paint. It's beautiful, beautiful paint.

Tomas discarded his soot-colored robe. He didn't need it anymore. The myriads of failed flowers would have to be forgotten. What he held in his hand needed protecting.

Tomas was never concerned with his self-inflicted task again. He regained the color in his eyes, in his heart, and in his being.

Tomas was very busy now. Tomas loved.