They handed me a rose when I was young,
said, \"Hold it close, child, sing our song.\"
But every petal hid a blade,
and every smile concealed a grave.
One thorn for every secret kept,
for every night I never slept.
One thorn for every stolen breath,
for every wish that begged for death.
A thorn for hands that crossed the line,
turned innocence to crime divine.
A thorn for silence in the hall,
while I learned how hard a child can fall.
A thorn for bruises painted deep,
for promises they could not keep.
A thorn for every hungry night,
for being left without a light.
A thorn for words that carved like knives,
that haunted days and stalked my nights.
A thorn for every twisted game,
that taught me shame should wear my name.
A thorn for every war they spun,
inside my mind when day was done.
Mental mazes, poisoned wells,
a thousand tiny private hells.
A thorn for hatred aimed at me,
for daring just to simply be.
For every sneer, for every doubt,
for every time they cast me out.
A thorn for mirrors teaching lies,
for self-loathing behind my eyes.
For every question, every scar,
wondering who the hell you are.
A thorn for nineteen years of rain,
nineteen years of borrowed pain.
Nineteen years stretched thin and long,
like a funeral dressed as a song.
Thirty-two years and counting still,
the garden climbs another hill.
The roots remain beneath the stone,
yet somehow I am not alone.
And then there\'s one.
The special thorn.
The blackest thorn the rose has grown.
Not for the wounds that bled me dry,
not for the countless reasons why.
But for the child I used to be,
who waited for a family tree
to grow him shelter, grow him shade,
instead of teaching him decay.
That thorn remains.
It never sleeps.
It hums beneath the soil deep.
An eerie hymn, a whispered vow,
\"You survived them. Look at you now.\"
And every rose they thought would die,
still lifts its face against the sky.
Covered in thorns.
Covered in scars.
Yet somehow blooming through the dark.