Read The Sun and Her Flowers for Free Online Page B

and wrong
    better than your mind does
    - it is speaking to you
    i stand
    on the sacrifices
    of a million women before me
    thinking
    what can i do
    to make this mountain taller
    so the women after me
    can see farther
    - legacy

    when i go from this place
    dress the porch with garlands
    as you would for a wedding my dear
    pull the people from their homes
    and dance in the streets
    when death arrives
    like a bride at the aisle
    send me off in my brightest clothing
    serve ice cream with rose petals to our guests
    there’s no reason to cry my dear
    i have waited my whole life
    for such a beauty to take
    my breath away
    when i go
    let it be a celebration
    for i have been here
    i have lived
    i have won at this game called life
    - funeral
    it was when i stopped searching for home within others
    and lifted the foundations of home within myself
    i found there were no roots more intimate
    than those between a mind and body
    that have decided to be whole

    what good am i
    if i do not fill the plates
    of the ones who fed me
    but fill the plates of strangers
    - family
    even if they’ve been separated
    they’ll end up together
    you can’t keep lovers apart
    no matter how much
    i pluck and pull them
    my eyebrows always
    find their way
    back to each other
    - unibrow

    a child and an elder sat across from each other at a table
    a cup of milk and tea before them
    the elder asked the child
    if she was enjoying her life
    the child answered yes
    life was good but
    she couldn’t wait to grow up
    and do grown-up things
    then the child asked the elder the same question
    he too said life was good
    but he’d give anything to go back to an age
    where moving and dreaming were still possibilities
    they both took a sip from their cups
    but the child’s milk had curdled
    the elder’s tea had grown bitter
    there were tears running from their eyes
    the day you have everything
    i hope you remember
    when you had nothing

    she is not a porn category
    or the type you look for
    on a friday night
    she is not needy or easy or weak
    - daddy issues is not a punch line
    i long to be a lily pad

    i made change after change
    on the road to perfection
    but when i finally felt beautiful enough
their definition of beauty
    suddenly changed
    what if there is no finish line
    and in an attempt to keep up
i lose the gifts i was born with
    for a beauty so insecure
    it can’t commit to itself
    - the lies they sell
    you want to keep
    the blood and the milk hidden
    as if the womb and breast
    never fed you

    it is a trillion-dollar industry that would collapse
    if we believed we were beautiful enough already

    their concept of beauty
    is manufactured
    i am not
    - human

    how do i shake this envy
    when i see you doing well
    sister how do i love myself enough to know
    your accomplishments are not my failures
    - we are not each other’s competition
    it is a blessing
    to be the color of earth
    do you know how often
    flowers confuse me for home

    we need more love
    not from men
    but from ourselves
    and each other
    - medicine
    you are a mirror
    if you continue to starve yourself of love
    you’ll only meet people who’ll starve you too
    if you soak yourself in love
    the universe will hand you those
    who’ll love you too
    - a simple math

    how much
    or how little
    clothing she has on
    has nothing to do with how free she is
    - covered | uncovered
    there are mountains growing
    beneath our feet
    that cannot be contained
    all we’ve endured
    has prepared us for this
    bring your hammers and fists
    we have a glass ceiling to shatter
    - let’s leave this place roofless

    it isn’t blood that makes you my sister
    it’s how you understand my heart
    as though you carry it
    in your body
    what is the greatest lesson a woman should learn
    that since day one
    she’s already had everything she needs within herself
    it’s the world that convinced her she did not

    they convinced me
    i only had a few good years left
    before i was