I feel like crap.

She refused to wake up and smell the roses for what they really were. All she got was the faintest perfume and the stink of the manure beneath. She didn’t smell the green of the grass beyond and she didn’t smell the mold at the bottom of her shoes and she walked blindly through the garden. Soon her eyes became only for the manure, and she began to hate, and the roses began to hate her back because she didn’t understand. She wouldn’t even look at them, only glancing up and complaining that the sun was too hot on her back, for the roses created that heat and that light, the wonderful things that could have cured her of her bad temperament, but she did not look and she did not listen to their cries.

Soon the roses began to keep secrets from her, and she only got more suspicious of them, tearing out their roots and trying to rip out all of the manure. She did not see that it was the dark and smelly things that helped them to grow. Everything is good in some situation, no matter how strange. But she did not see, she only smelled the bad.

The women had another set of flowers. She had chrysanthemums, also bright and with so many petals. But they had so many more petals. And they did not need manure to grow better, only the sun and water. They were more perfect than the roses, or so she thought.

Of course, the roses knew that she was right. The roses could see that the chrysanthemums were better, because they did not need manure, like the roses did. The chrysanthemums did not raise a stink. But they were messier than the rose, and they annoyed the woman with all of the tiny petals they spread across the ground. But the woman loved them despite of that.

She did not feel the same way about the roses.

The roses began to wilt, because flowers need more than food and water to grow. They need love. Sometimes other people would walk by and compliment the roses, but the rose told themselves that the strangers were just too far away. The strangers could not smell the manure. The roses became ashamed of the smell, and when the woman complained about it to the others, the roses felt even more ashamed. The woman did not know that the rose was ashamed of the smell, and so she shared it with everyone, complaining and wondering aloud what was to be done.

And the roses wilted even more.

The woman noticed, as did all of the neighbors. The neighbors but more manure on the roses, not knowing that the rose was so weak that it could not get the nutrients into itself fast enough. No one knew that every night the dew dripped off of the rose, falling to the ground like tears. They thought such things were impossible for roses, because roses were supposed to hold their water. And it was true that, though no one ever saw them, the roses were good at holding the rain inside. But it would spill over all too often when no one was looking and the roses could not help but saw to themselves ‘you are worthless.’

The woman smelt all of the manure, and yelled even more.

Then the roses looked over the fence, and they quickly became infatuated. Over the old white wooden pickets were flowers that were blooming tall and strong. They were flowers that were not ashamed of themselves. The rose tried to mimic them, straightening her stem and putting a rosy color in her petals. But the problem for her was the same. She still smelled, when you got too close. From the outside, in photographs, she seemed beautiful, but when you came close and when you asked the woman about her, you realized that she stank. Strangers used to ask about the roses. ‘How is it that your flowers look so bright?’ but the woman would just point to the places where the leaves had holes, and to the thorns, and she would say ‘they are not bright. They are smelly and corrupt and stupid and lame. They do not have the wonder of the chrysanthemum.’ And then she would lead them across the garden and show them the yellow flowers, and the rose would wilt again.

The rose became obsessed with the world she saw on the other side of the fence. She tried to be like the people she saw, and she became smart. She tried to argue with the woman, to demand that the woman look at her, see her, but the woman ignored her.

The woman did not see how hard the rose was trying to shine.

The rose began to be tossed against the rough brick wall behind it, and the petals along its back began to tear and fill with holes. The rose was sure that people could see its ragged edges, but no one could, because those edges were kept behind, where people’s eyes did not travel. The woman did not notice the rose dipping itself into a pot of bright pink paint. The rose looked right, but the woman only smelled the manure, and she only saw the ragged edges and the thorns.

Many people tried to help the rose, and she tried to help herself. For a long time she held herself from the wall, but then her arms began to tire and weaken because she was once again distracted by the world on the other side of the fence, the world that made her stronger and yet also made her worse. One day she fell against the wall completely, and she was sure that every inch of her was turn. But the people still only saw the pink paint.

Soon, she began to yell, and stamp.

And the roses though they would quite be crushed under her feet. But they survived the ordeal, and they managed to spread their seeds, in the hope that someone would see and someone would help the roses to grow.

But no one ever saw and the rose withered and died, crushed by the one who only ever saw the stink, and not the beauty in broken things.

No one ever sees the beauty of broken things. Broken people are the strongest of all, and yet we choose to lock them away rather than look at them. Broken people are the strongest because they have survived where others have shattered so much that they have died.