This is perhaps the most personal poem I've written to date. It's taken longer than any other poem I've written. Love it or hate it, here it is. Enjoy.

-=[[The Reddest Rose]]=-

For two decades I walked through my garden
Slowly passing by to admire the beauty of it's gifts
Stopping under the mighty oak tree to rest my eyes
Or napping on the soft and comforting earth beneath me

But of all the beautiful creatures in my garden
The rose had stolen my heart with it's warmth and beauty
Every day that I traveled I made an effort to visit my rose
Even if for a second, the glimpse of it would make me smile

But even after visiting my rose an uncountable amount of times
I still refused to heed the warning that it displayed clear as day
It's thorns, sharp and unforgiving, and myself, void and dull
I eventually dove head first into temptation and was struck

And I bled.

The dripping petals from my own had left a stain on the grass
A stain such that one could argue was the result of a battle or war
Was a simple prick of the finger, from the beautiful and innocent rose
Who still lay starch and unfazed by the act that it had just committed

And then for the first time in twenty years, I left my garden
Closing it's gates behind me and throwing away the key
Until the day arose that I spotted you admiring my garden
Inspecting all of it's gifts, and awaiting a red ribboned prize

Day after day, your pattern had mirrored my own foolish way
Stopping by, if only for a second, to get a glimpse....a fix
It was then that I realized, I could not conceal my rose any more
For one as beautiful as it, could never be contained

And so I offered you the reddest rose, but it wasn't red enough
Instead, you refused my offer and pilfered my beautiful prize
Leaving me nothing but a stained patch of grass
That to this day remains redder than any rose could ever hope to be

No really, that's fine. Just sit down and relax. No really, I'll just bump this. That's fine, you know?

I had an exact breakdown of the grammar issues for you but Firefox farted on me. In short, there are about five uses of "it's" that should be "its," and in the second to last stanza "any more" should be one word. Maybe consider hyphenating "red ribboned" as well. The adjective form of "starch" would be "starchlike," but consider replacing it with "staunch."

The feel of it all is very good although the theme of tragedy and loss has to get old for you eventually. Aside from the grammar at times, my only gripe with your writing is that you often trade careful word choice for overused phrases and symbols ("gate and key" for example) and come out sounding pretentious and trite.

I suggest you go through and play madlib. Find words in your poem that could be more specific ("beautiful," "foolish," etc.) and dig deep into thesaurus.reference.com for exactly the word that fits your mental image.

It's good, I think you just need to throw some more vocabulary at it.

But like Stephen King said that one time, if you have to look in the Thesaurus for it, it is not [ever] the right word.

I honestly actually like it.

I hate the structure and word use, but I like the metaphor of the red rose. It's good.

In other words, I like what you're doing, I just hate the way you're doing it. Keep working at it. You're headed in the right direction with the message.