Flowers

Scratches, scars, and tears,
Stretch marks, unique shapes, bright colors.

The flower has all of these,
each so different and beautiful.

Smallest to the largest, We see beauty,
a triumph of breaking through the ground.

Harsh sun, overwatering, and weeds,
All try so hard to choke them out.

But when together, there is nothing that can.
Power in the beauty of harmony, they stand.

Coming back year after year, how loved is their rebirth. For nothing can stop them.

Water the flower, speak kind words over it,
Prune the toxic weeds that try to choke it.

Stand for the ones that have suffered and continue to because they have been forgotten.

Protect the small sprouts and buds of flowers yet to bloom, give them a chance to grow.

Don't stand by as aggressors pluck petals,
be the sun that burns them dare they touch.

Why compare the different beauty you see?
Why cut down the daffodil for the snowdrop?

All have the same core, all were created with great love and care, celebrate the differences.

From the mighty tree in bloom to the hesitant growth that came back from a drought.

All are beautiful, All have value
and all deserve love.

I am constantly in awe of the amazing women I come across, women who have overcome so much in their lives, women who are going through so much, women that are the reminder that there is an other side.

I think of the women who are mistreated an marginalized all over the world, the young girls who aren't yet women that are forced into the sex trade, the children that are sold by their fathers, the little girls that do their best to look after the ones younger than them and take the worst to protect them. The survivors of sexual assault that deal with trauma and PTSD but find a way to fight for others through it.

The young women who are forced to choose between homelessness and prostitution, the single mothers that are hardly making ends meet and skipping meals to feed their kids, the woman who mourns for her child and carries grief with her everyday, the foster mom that has the fortitude to love kids that no one wanted.

The women that fight for others at great cost to themselves, for the soldiers that have died to protect millions. The teachers that fight to see kids nurtured and well educated, the doctors, nurses, and technicians that fight for to see people taken care of physically and mentally.

The beautiful women that are faced with racism that I can only do my best to fight against, the women that are assaulted and threatened for wearing the hijab, the women that fear for their safety because of their skin color. The women whose lives and circumstances I can't understand but can come beside and support.

I think of the pioneers in science whose names no one knows, the engineers and mathematicians, the women that build our society's from the ground up. The artist's, dancer's, writers, creators that put just bit of their soul into the world.

Women who make the choice to stay at home because it makes them happy, who love their spouse and children and gladly stay at home and are shamed for this.

The women that don't want kids and are told they will one day when they never will and are made to feel like a disappointment to their sex, to the women who physically can't have children and have to come to terms with it.

I remember the women that adopt and are every bit a mother even if they never experience pregnancy. For the women that are never mothers, they are just as much a women because having children doesn't disqualify you from being one nor is it a requirement.

The women in a professional setting that faces sexism and discrimination every day, that rise above it nonetheless.

The women who are raised with ingrained mindsets to belittle or think of less of other girls and grow up to find out that hating other girls doesn't make you better, that everyone is capable of change no matter how hard it is. The little girls who grow up hating themselves because of toxic ideas planted in them and grow up to love themselves even so.

I think of the women we lost, the ones that were forgotten. The murders and suicides of women that never got help, fallen sisters that were just as worthy of love. For all the girls that never made it to womanhood, the lost opportunity of what they might have been.

Every woman is valid and worth remembering.

Think of them when you think of what it means to be a woman. Love the flowers in your life and be kind to them.

#internationalwomensday