Can'T Be Held

I chanced upon a spinny overgrowth, in which a sole rose had born, her supple blossom shone like balefire, even against her thorns. “Come to me” she beckoned, yet the bracken warned with wicked teeth. The lone hint of ruby in a palette of sepia, ashened against her thorns, before I suckeled at my finger, and tasted the droplet of red iron she had painted on me with guilty bite, pricked against her thorns. At this task I would not falter, straining to grasp, again and again, flesh and sinew rendered pulp, stripped away against her thorns, leaving me naked until nothing remained but hope, a simple dream that one day I may finally lay down to rest against her thorns