Rupi Kaur

The Sun and Her Flowers

Leslie

nanafark

Emma Wolfe

Karin Volarić

Sara🌻

"what is it with you and sunflowers he asked 

that it what the sun does to those flowers

i tried to leave many times but as soon as i got away my lungs buckled under the pressure panting for air id return perhaps this is why i let you skin me to the bone something

was better than nothing having you touch me even if it was not kind

was better than not having your hands at all i could take the abuse i could not take the absence iknew i was beating a dead thing but did it matter if the thing was dead when at the very least

i hear a thousand kind words about me and it makes no difference yet i hear one insult and all confidence shatters

you do not just wake up and become the butterfly

no was a bad word in my home no was met with the lash erased from our vocabulary beaten out of our backs till we became well-behaved kids who obediently nodded yes to everything when he climbed on top of me every part of my body wanted to reject it but i couldn't say no to save my life when i tried to scream all that escaped me was silence i heard no pounding her fist on the roof of my mouth begging to let her out

but i had not put up the exit sign never built the emergency staircase there was no trapdoor for no to escape from i want to ask all the

parents and guardians a question what use was obedience then when there were hands that were not mine inside me

- how can i verbalize consent as an adult if i was never taught to as a child

parts of my body still ache from the first time they were touched

the way you speak of yourself the way you degrade yourself into smallness is abuse

The Sun and Her Flowers quotes

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