The only love I had known was like a bee to a cactus flower
So just as a bee, I dug my stinger in as far as it could go
trying desperately to attach
in return
I got ripped apart

I turned into a wasp
I can finally sting
without suffering greater
but little did I know
wasps
were a matriarch

Mothers
the backbone of society
yet some of those women
turn comfort
to anxiety

Mothers are what keep us together
although not the ones who control the weather
and choose to shower you in cactus flowers
and watch as it happens

Never
the ones that take all you've earned
from needles down your back for hours

Those women do not deserve that title

A title is something you earn
so it belongs
to the women who honor the metamorphosis of nature
as they help you bloom, rather than bleed.

That bee that I was
with his first flower
anxious for love
will forever be gone

Although through years of reincarnation
as every flower I attempt to take back wilts
and depraves me of pollen
I gave up
I have become
the flower
I have died
relived
died
and decomposed into the flower
as we became one

So as I repeat the cycle
of death
and life
I hope to one day become a weed
repulsive
and unrecognizable.
© Now, Liliana Stephens love • personal • mothers • sad • betrayal • sexual-assault