Daughter of Roses

Poem

By Victoria Ashleigh Rose

I am the daughter of roses

With bristles that prick but never scold

In a mother-tongue defiled by strained vocal chords

And the petals never wither at my velveteen touch

Soft like them

careful

Because I know how easily preening petals

as though they are feathers

Creates rot;

Nec•rose•d

in the name of love.

I was the daughter of evergreen branches

Sappy and brittle

Tantalized by the wind

And I’d climb up to the very top

To chase the unattainable.

I was raised by the birds that broke their wings

In my garden

On my mothers windowsill

Unaware of boundaries or limitations

Until my home showed them

And I took them in

Knowing I would set them free

And the wind would give them all the promises that were never given to the trees.

But the wind would hear my secrets;

—Carry them off with no consequences—

That I was the garden’s girl

That I would share every story whispered to me by bugs

And birds

And all the motherless creatures

All the daughters of roses

And limitless wanderers

Whose homes were in the dirt

Feet nestled in the weeds

Because stubbornness is instinctual

For those growing untamed, unpreened

Alone

And there is beauty in the abandoned.

I am the daughter of ferns and poison ivy

Safer when uncurling in the dark

Invulnerable to rashes spread

Immune to a mother’s toxin

And I learned to coil around steady lovers

Like vines entangling entities

Planted in the earth

To be each other’s lifeline in storms I knew were coming

Always coming

Outside of windows and walls

For the limitless, motherless daughters

And lovers

Of garden girls.