Peach Roses

Written by Fairuza Hanun

After Clean by Taylor Swift

illustration by Yulia Saraswati

*Writer’s note: Peach roses represent sincerity, appreciation, a get-together. Red roses represent love, passion, courage, respect. This poem was inspired by the line in the song, Clean, where Swift sings: “the drought was the very worst, ah ah / when the flowers that we’d grown together died of thirst.” I wanted to change the subjectivity of “we” in the lyric and, instead of a couple pruning their flowers together, picture a collective nurturing flowers that were given by that person but instantly abandoned.