Blood Roses

Once upon a time, there was a teenage boy who loved a teenage girl, and the girl was in love with the boy. Like teenagers everywhere, they had no idea who they were or who they would become, but they thought they would find out together. They were right, and they were wrong.

However, the girl listened to a woman’s music, and that helped her find a part of herself. The woman wrote songs that spoke to the girl’s soul. The boy, like many boys in love with girls, started listening to the music the girl loved because it’s what one does. (It didn’t hurt any that the boy listened to a man’s music, and that man sang a song with the woman.)

A strange thing happened, however; the boy fell in love with the woman’s music, too – and maybe a bit with the woman herself. Her voice was bewitching: her talent undeniable. The woman possessed a seductive, dangerous charisma the boy couldn’t resist. She seemed like a modern-day Siren: her songs beautiful, yet damning.

Through the woman’s music, and what it meant to the girl, the boy learned more about the girl. He learned how she struggled to show him, and everyone else, the person behind the mask of polite society and parental expectations. He learned about her need to be more than just his girl.

Then he learned something about himself. He learned something about being silenced, being violated. He learned about being joyful in spite of these tragedies. He learned something about being one’s truest self, no matter how much the rest of the world might not understand.

The boy and girl saw the woman perform her music several times, and even got a chance to meet her by skipping school. (The boy felt no regret, and assumed at least one of his teachers would understand.) The boy couldn’t speak when face-to-face with the woman. She was as enchanting in person as she was on record. Thankfully, his handmade T-shirt spoke for him: “Real men listen to Tori Amos.”

While the boy and girl didn’t stay in love forever, happily ever after, the man the boy became is eternally grateful to the girl that one of the things she shared was the music.

Darius McCaskey Avatar

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