When you see a thorn poking out of a rose

remember

there are thorns in everything

 

–I was going to say,

it’s the thorns that make the roses beautiful–

 

but that’s not right;

thorns are prickly and annoying;

it’s the thorns that make the roses real.

 

A world without thorns is perfect

but a world without thorns doesn’t exist

so

when you look at a rose

and see a thorn

tell yourself

it’s that thorn that makes the rose real.

 

And without the thorn

the rose would just be a pleasant fiction

—for why would a fictional rose have thorns?—

and so the thorns make the rose real

which makes the rose more beautiful

which makes it a beautiful thorn

after all.