Our Daughters

She is a beautiful vivid flower that requires blooming.

She stands out in the box of closed minds.

She withers in the presence of weeds that smother her roots and stunts her growth.

The soil that is to nurture her is filled with foreign unfamiliar objects that her young roots do not understand.

But she continues to struggle to survive in a world of strangely shaped weeds that impersonate flowers and introduces her to roads and travels, taking her to a place that dims her true potential.

She no longer has the covering that protected her as a seedling. As seedlings are very delicate and wrong conditions can ruin them.

She is stubborn to receive direction from the white-haired elder that has been placed strategically beside her.

Sometimes she has trouble deciphering the elder with its peculiar appearance from the strangely shaped weeds. She finds this elder strange in voice and appearance. The elder does not look like the young flower so the elder’s words of wisdom go unheard.

The closed minded weeds are convincing and assertive. Their goal to drain the crimson color from her life so they can feel superior because now her glorious color has dimmed, and all living in the box look and act the same.

The white-haired elder knows that time is running out so she does not give up reaching out to touch the very tip of this young flower fighting to be independent but different than the weeds that try to confine her.

© 2016 All words & images by Tanya Graham unless otherwise noted.