The cold night grips me like frost clinging to Christmas morning windows of houses abandoned for warmer climates.

The rustling of the leaves on trees swaying in the wind and the faint sound of a solitary cricket fail to cover the all too deafening silence.

The steel chair’s icy sting travels through my body, through the armrests to my bare forearms, up and down my spine chilling all my vertebrae.

The garden greenery, lush and vibrant in daytime, have wilted in the darkness, flowers and branches shying away from my presence.

Enduring the cold, the silence, the chills, the solitude, I stare, at the empty seat beside me… and wait.

Warren Augustus de Guzman

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/picking-petals-off-roses/