This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ezekiel_h_graves on 2024-11-09 12:05:52+00:00.
I log into the video call, like I do every week, joining faces that appear one by one on the screen, each set of eyes weighed down by shadows I know all too well. We’re all here for similar reasons—each of us dealing with something knotted inside, wounds that go back further than any of us want to remember. The therapist tries to get us talking, to break the ice and help us make sense of it all. So, every week, we share a “Rose” and a “Thorn”: one small moment of light, and one thing that’s still holding us down.
Most weeks, I keep it simple. My rose is always something like “I got out of bed every day.” And my thorn? Well, I usually just say, “I’m still here,” and leave it at that. They don’t push for more, and I can see it in their eyes—these people know what it’s like to wrestle with things you don’t want to talk about.
One Thursday, after our call, I decide to tackle my garden. My therapist suggested that working with my hands could be good for me, maybe help me feel more in control. So, I find myself out there, staring down the wild rose bushes that have been growing untouched in the yard, twisting over themselves with dark, thorny branches. The garden almost feels like a mirror—overgrown, tangled, clawing.
I grab the shears and start hacking away. As I reach for a particularly twisted branch, a thorn lunges out, slicing into my wrist, deep and fast. It takes me a second to even register the pain, but when I do, it’s like a jolt of ice running up my arm. Blood starts to seep down, thick and dark, and I stumble back, heart pounding. The thorn glints in the fading light, cruel and sharp, as if it’s mocking me.
The next morning, I’m drawn back to the garden with this strange, sinking feeling. And there it is—the thorn I’d cut yesterday, standing tall again, curling toward me like it had never been touched. My wrist starts throbbing beneath the bandage, the pain twisting in rhythm with my pulse. I grab the shears, hands shaking, and clip the thorn again, watching it drop to the ground. But as I turn to leave, a chill settles over me, deep and bone-cold.
That night, I sink into an uneasy sleep, and then the dream begins.
I’m back in my garden, only it’s grown into this dark, endless forest, with thick, twisting shadows stretching out toward me. The thorny vines wrap around my legs, coiling up my arms, each thorn digging deeper into my skin. I try to move, but I can’t. I’m rooted in place as they tighten, winding around my bones, piercing through flesh, leaving searing, jagged trails. I try to scream, but nothing comes out—only this low, chilling whisper.
Just before I’m pulled into the earth, I hear it clearly: “Sometimes the thorns we cut away are the ones that refuse to ever leave.”
I jolt awake, gasping, my heart hammering in my chest. I look down, and there it is—my wrist, bleeding again, the cut fresh and raw, as if I’d never bandaged it. In the mirror, my face is pale, and my eyes look darker, sunken. The whisper from my dream echoes in my mind, sinking in, like those thorns had taken root beneath my skin.
When the next video call comes around, I can barely speak. My voice trembles as I force out my rose: “I made it through the week.” But when it’s time to share my thorn, my throat tightens. My fingers brush over the fresh bandage on my wrist.
“There’s… something in my garden,” I say, barely above a whisper. “A thorn that won’t stay gone. Every time I cut it back, it comes back sharper. It cuts me deeper.” Silence settles over the call, and I can feel the tension in their faces. Some look away, eyes flickering with worry, but my therapist just watches me, her face shadowed.
“Sometimes,” she says softly, “it’s the thorns we cut back that grow the deepest.”
That night, I dream again, and this time it’s darker, sharper. I’m back in that endless, twisted forest, with thorns reaching up toward a blood-red sky. I look down, horrified, as thorny vines start to push up through my skin, curling around my arms, piercing me from the inside out. The whisper comes again, louder this time, filling my mind, consuming me.
“Sometimes the thorns we cut away are the ones that refuse to ever leave.”
I wake up to find my wrist bleeding again, the wound cutting through scars that barely had time to heal. Outside, the garden looms dark and wild, each thorn glinting in the morning light, reaching as if it knows. I realize, in that moment, I’ll never try to cut them again.
As I close my laptop after the next call, the whisper comes one last time, creeping through the silence like a voice I know too well:
“Some thorns are yours forever.”