As delicate as a dusky rose,
Her scent was just as sweet.
Her laugh as bright as the day
Golden hair shimmered like the sun.

I watched from afar
A schoolboy caught
And thrown into orbit
Around her star.

I longed to reach out
To touch the petals
Of that rarest rose
To savour every silken inch.

But I was young
And fear gripped me,
Stayed my hand
And held me back.

If I were to try and hold this flower
Would she resist my touch?
Burn me with the shame
Of rejection?

Would her thorns pierce my flesh?
A mechanism for her protection?
Or would she turn her face to me,
As a flower does the sun?

The answers to these questions,
I will never know.
For every flower in nature
Must bloom and prosper and grow.

And so my dusky rose
Turned her face to the sun
And I watched,
Numb with love and fear
Knowing I was not
The one she chose.

Time though,
Is the greatest healer
And has given me others
To hold close

But in those quiet moments
When I sit alone and reflect
I think about my childhood crush
And my delicate dusky rose.