The bitter scent of tea roses

Listen.
This is not a bouquet.
This is a glitch.


Asphalt melts like vinyl on a skillet,
Wi-Fi catches ghosts in a wet high-rise.
We are triangles in a circular sorrow,
A tea rose on a cold temple.
Not botany — physics! Quantum collapse.
Petals crumble in our chats and dreams.
You don't smell of a garden, but of iodine and darkness,
Cut this air — it is dense, it is mine.


Ah!
Inhale!
Before it cools down.
Before you forget.

Припев
Bitter!
The smell of tea roses — like a blow to the gut.
For the living. For the mute. For us — the two of us.
Bitter!
This is not sweetness, this is an SOS signal.
The rust of twilight.
The ash of hair.
Tea... Tea... Tea roses.


In the supermarkets of feelings — a sale on passions,
But the rose knocks the guests out of us with a thorn.
It smells of the train station, separation, gasoline,
It smells like God who suddenly became a shop.
Twist this scent into a neon tourniquet!
Where it’s sweet — they lie.
Where it’s bitter — they live!


Rose.
Dose.
Prose.
Storm.
Look me in the eye.
LOOK ME IN THE EYE!

Припев
Bitter!
The smell of tea roses — like a blow to the gut.
For the living. For the mute. For us — the two of us.
Bitter!
This is not sweetness, this is an SOS signal.
The rust of twilight.
The ash of hair.
Tea... Tea... Tea roses.


Bitterness.
Tea.
Goodbye.