He sets them down,

a dozen roses.

Red as warning lights.

The room?

It chokes on their perfume.

And everyone says:

How lucky you are.

How tender.

How generous.

What a man.

But overnight

the petals blacken.

Curl into bruises.

Edges dark as the marks

on my skin.

The stems drown in cloudy water.

And I know.

I know how beauty rots in silence,

how sweetness

smothers like a pillow

pressed to my face.

His voice?

Honey in public.

Tar in the dark.

His charm,

a blade,

sharpened on laughter.

The same hands

that cradle my face at dinner parties

are the hands that carve fingerprints

deep into wet clay.

People breathe him in.

They only smell roses.

But me?

I choke.

On the stench beneath.

On the poison no one else tastes.

And still,

he smiles.

All sugar.

All silk.

As if he hasn’t hollowed me out

with every strike.

I carry it in my body.

Purple blossoming:

ribs, thighs, throat.

Because rotting flowers

can still smell sweet.

And me?

I’m the vase he keeps shattering.

My blood the water.

My skin the petals.

My silence

the perfume

that fools them all.

That convinces them:

Yes.

These are roses.