Once Upon A Midnight Dreary

That damned rosebush is tap-tap-tapping at the bedroom window.

Mamaw says you're supposed to prune your rosebushes by Valentine's Day.
I didn't. Now I remember why I got out there and trimmed it last year, in the first place. First thing tomorrow - well, not first thing - but tomorrow, I'll have to find those clippers and get out there and cut the thing's stupid fingers off.

Tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap...then there's the roar of the fans, and the singing of the crickets - who can sleep through all this?

I used to cut roses with a pair of hand-held clippers.
Once upon a time, far far away.

The hours are counting down. The strangers are coming - a hundred of them and more, with their cold hands. I can't keep them away; my hands are small, and my voice isn't loud enough.

I used to cut roses, and put them in vases, in every room of the house.
But the vases are gone, and soon everything else will be gone too.

That rosebush is still there, though, right outside my bedroom window,
and tonight it will suffer for the wrongs done today.