Roses

One Valentine's Day there were roses in the laundry room The next Valentine's Day one home was two And I blame no one but fate For teaching me love comes late And doesn't stay long Like the drunks in a karaoke bar I thought dead roses were a metaphor till I saw them on the floor Swept under the carpet 'til we pulled it up Cause you said it was yours And I blame nothing but dust For making cherished things look untouched And neglected When I just liked it how I left it And I could list the ways it messed me up By every face I never touched And every time that I played music way too loud Cause it's the way I drowned you out I was too young in some ways to understand it I'm still too young in some ways to understand it Now I'm just old enough to stand it and stay standing I'm too colorblind sometimes to see the difference I'm too caught in my rewinds to see the difference Between love and assistance Between loss and indifference Mid-February I think of everything that went wrong Mid-February I reconvince myself it was my fault Was all the screaming about me Was the leaving just to leave Or did I push you Lock every door you could come back through When I start to avoid an argument at any cost And I refuse to celebrate good things just cause they could be lost I still feel 9 years old With a Middle Aged soul Cause what I've found Loves nothing more than a battleground It's hard to explain, it hurts that by My wedding day you'll both arrive In separate cars with separate lives, And separate hearts, while I'm the tie That's being pulled but taking sides Is how I learned what love is like I'm naive in a way that keeps me going I'm naive in a way that keeps me focused I'm not wishing on a fallen tree I've just let it's roots grow over me But I still cover my ears in the evening Sometimes I swear I still hear the screaming I think I'll never be someone worth loving If at each thorn I just find myself running So I keep everyone else at a distance So they'll never get close enough to hit me And if it fell in my hands I wouldn't know it So I just shy away from roses