Renaissance

Crush hope like a dried-up rose. Crumbling red falls from hateful hands. "Give us nothing to love," the hands say, "for we love to kill." Drop death into the earth that holds the plant from which the ruined rose was cut. An exhale, a finishing sigh, relieve a stuck breath. "Now we are free!" the hands cry. Life awakens, darkness disappears. The rose smiles softly to its murderers, drawing tears out of their fingertips. The living, soft red petals surround themselves with a message: "We must believe in our souls or destruction will reign again." "What destruction?" ask the hands. They have forgotten.