Grow

I am a rose that looks like a weed
Trying to grow, grow, grow
But you cut down the beauty.

Watered down by discouragements,
I start to believe
That I will never bloom
In full color.

You keep telling the rose
It needs to be a tree
even though
That isn't me.

Slowly I will think
This world has
No place for me,

That I'm just a fish --
A fish that couldn't climb a tree.

A rose
That couldn't bloom as me
I'll die in the garden
Unappreciated
Uncultivated
For its true beauty
No one sees
Including me.

For, how do you see
Who you really are,
When who you are
is hidden
and suppressed
beyond imagination?

I dream of things
Not given to me
A rose,
A rose
That climbs higher than any tree.

A tiny fish
That braves the open sea
That is what I feel
Takes to become me.

Bright red
In a world of muted lilac
Slowly wasting away.

My kind is a rare breed,
You say.
Ha! I will rot in the garden.

(To be a skirt
In a world full of jeans

I was born different
And you can't bear me.)