Rose

I was greeted with a fragrant smell,

Out of my mother's womb, as I leaped into this grotesque hell.

Greeted with a rose – the sweetest stimulus to a naïve olfactory pleasure,

Oblivious of the thorns that lie ahead, for a prickly path in life - one must take.

Out in the wild, I was thrown to the bloodthirsty wolves,

As if the destined prickly path was not enough, these racists enquired about my roots,

And I wondered – For whom are the scriptures written, religions, caste and sects created?

And am I not an eternal soul, devoid of an earthly identity, stuffed inside a decaying flesh?

As I traversed life, at every nook and corner, I found these rose petals, used and abused,

Adorning, mourning, loving, and lusting – across a myriad emotion, day after day

I paused to appreciate this deceptive flower - with its stem, thorns, petals, and fragrance,

As I found beneath its petals – love, grief, greed and heartbreak, enumerated.

A couple of miles ahead, I found a morgue.

Two corpses, with no pride and identity, just waiting for two pairs of known shoulders.

Adorned in those rose petals, as the corpses wait - all set for their final address.

I was enchanted by the sight: a deceptive conception of beauty hiding the imminent decay.

Out of my curiosity, I took a short detour to the nearest rose market.

An old rose vendor, with twinkling eyes, selling hope to the dying, and love to the youth.

I paused and asked this man – "How much are these roses for? Seem quite expensive"

With a smirk, he replied: "Can you truly bargain on the value of a rose?"