Young Flower Leah Brewer ’24
She always looked like a flower to me, A beautiful, white rose. She always wore the prettiest clothes, And always talked about the coolest things. They were all flowers, in fact. Each of them always looking so perfect. They always knew exactly how to dress, How to look, how to act. But I was never a rose, I was never even a flower. I was always just a blade of grass, Always different from the rest. But they could fix me, couldn’t they? They could make me a flower, just like them. They caked makeup onto my face, And they dressed me in small, tight clothes.
But I wasn’t like them. My skin wasn’t clear and sunkissed. My body wasn’t perfectly small and curved. I didn’t dress in feminine attire like they did. And they judged me for it, Always looking me up and down when I entered the room. I was still so young, still happy and carefree. But they wanted me to grow up. And so I did. I made myself into a lotus. I made myself fit into their standards Of what someone like me should be like. I wanted to speak up against them. I wished to stop relying on their validation. But every time I got up to speak, The words got caught in my throat.
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The Publication of the Arts
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