it isn't what you think it was

so tired of being dirty
let me cast it off for a while
an hour, a minute, three breaths
across my cheek
let me be as i used to be
(what i think i was
what i want to have been)
a while
unknowing and unseeing
fresh and unsullied by the cares of the world
let me be white like dresses and fresh like roses
freshly plucked from your mothers garden
and tucked behind ears
(but maybe it wasn't so easy
small thorns catching on tender flesh
drips of blood staining pale cloth)

oh, for what never was.