Her Meadow
Gather around, bring your cups and find a couch. I have a story to tell you.
When there was spring, flowers and birds in the sun, there was a little girl dancing around in a meadow. A meadow of her own making, where she didn't fear a scraped knee or an angry bee. A meadow where people smiled at her, gave her a berry or an apple, called her pretty and kind and kissed her head with unadulterated love. A meadow that looked very much like her very own home. With her dolls and her books, with her parents and their looks. She saw her room as her flower bed, where roses and lilies and hyacinths and dandelions grew. She'd water them with love, and they'd return with their symphony of scents.
She'd go out into the garden, with real flowers and real leaves. She'd run around and chase the squirrels. She'd scream on the swing in joy and hear bellowing laughter around. Only this garden wasn't hers; people didn't love her as they did in her meadow. She did get hurt here, a scraped knee and an angry bee stung her little elbow. The girl felt fear here: the big boy who scared her, the girl who always cried in the corner, the father who held his daughter too close, and the man who looked at her with a phone and told her to pose.
She'd run back to her meadow, hide behind her door. She'd cry, and then she'd laugh, but she never went there again all alone. She found comfort in the flowers that smelled like life that would be hers. She embraced the joy without a tainted loss by its side. Life was fine in her meadow. Until she grew up...
It wasn't a meadow, you see, it was walls painted with flowers she loved. It was her mother's perfume that she smelled. It was the blanket on her bed, it was her father's kisses. She smelled the sea and heard the oceans; she held their hands and walked in passion. The ghost of the man was always behind her. Telling her to look and pose for the ‘sir’. She ran from him, in her dreams and in the park. She ran from him by the sea and by the school. Only he didn't leave; he persisted.
You see, he knew her very well. He quivered around her, told her he loved her. He unveiled her, in more ways than one. She stood there numb, told him she wanted to run. He ordered her quiet, liked her numb. She listened to him, and he didn't stop. She saw the room, and it wasn't a meadow. Her dreams were done, and she was alone. Blood wasn't new; the smell wasn't flowers. The girl in her was truly no more.
So she found her in her mother, held her by the fingers. Cried in her arms till she smelled those familiar flowers. Curled up around women and quiet little girls, this one found her tribe. While the world still chased her, she ran towards them. The women became her stems that loved her like a flower. The man still lived; her father grieved. Only this time it wasn't just the meadow, it was the world that was hers. See, she didn't fear the world anymore, for she wasn't alone. Every woman she saw would again smile at her and give her their love.
The little girl might have lost her girlhood with it. Yet she was loved by the women for it. She was one now, she knew that very well. For it was time for her to hold those little girls. When they cried, when they feared, when they died and when they lived. It was a gift, she knew, Womanhood. She was given it by her mother to pass it down to her daughter. Her love and her strength, her courage and her heart. Life never ceased, so did love. She would live, and so would many others.