A Girl Grows

peach-colored rose

there was a flower growing out of my hair.

i think it was a fruit of my thoughts; i watched with pleasure as the peach-colored rose danced and curled around my hair and around my wrists. like sunflowers begging to be touched by the sun's dripping gold gaze, the rose whispered love and loveliness into my skin, and it was a summer breeze that watered its affection.

not everyone has a rose growing from their beautiful thoughts. maybe this is why they were jealous. envious. covetous.

they wanted their own peach-colored roses, or azure tulips, or emerald and white baby's breath. i did not have any more for them than i had for myself.

one day i sat under a marigold sun and watched my rose open its petals to the zephyrs of the august air. my toes stretched into perfectly white sand that merged with cerulean sea. the rose, the materialization and embodiment of my good thoughts, breathed its comfort, its oxygen into my lungs and made me happy with myself.

i did not know they would come up behind me and clap a hand over my mouth, scissors in their fingers. they searched for the root of the rose, but they could not find it because it was embedded into my forest of thoughts and dreams and memories. "please don't take away my rose," i begged, but did not prevail.

they decided to cut it in the middle, and i knew my rose would die. my tears salted my dry cheeks. there is nothing more painful than losing the love of your life that has been there for you from the very beginning; the love for yourself.

i watched the petals drop to the ground and everything went dark from that day onward.

and after that, i discovered i could not love myself; i was stripped of those beautiful thoughts. people broke and hurt me, but my rose was not there to comfort me.

somehow i knew i could grow it again; i had to.

i searched myself for good thoughts, positive feelings, happy things.

i remember that night clearly.

first, i told myself to cleanse my mind of all the rotting colors—this i accomplished by stepping outside under the starry sky, feeling the drunk constellations speak rivulets of water and sunshine alcohol into my veins and into my soul. i looked at the moon aloft and felt joy.

second were the memories. after you forget, you must remember. and that is what i did. the stars were so far away, but i could hear their torch song up close; something enkindled in my chest like a burning fire of gold and pain and loss and regret but love and quiet gratitude and everything that happened to me i am thankful for.

and last of all, i had to close my eyes and smile and forgive. the hardest. how was i supposed to forgive the people i hated? the horrible antipathy that seethed from their lips and torched my heartstrings? the way they took my rose and killed it? how do i forgive the way they laughed at the peach-colored petals falling so ruefully to the sand?

but i must. i must.

the sky is now pigmented with a growing dark red hue; the sun is rising. i dig my fingers into the white-gold sand and breathe. my knees sink to the ground, and kneeling, i know it when it happens. i forgive them. i forgive him. i forgive her.

and most of all, i forgive myself.

then i can feel it, i feel it—my thoughts flower and grow and bloom; with a certain tenacity foreign to my bones, i grow a garden from my new thoughts. i water them with happy, joyful tears, i scream into the wind. i spread my arms wide and laugh and laugh as the vines and leaves and petals entangle themselves in my cascade of hair and twist around my arms, and i am a forest and a garden and a girl all at the same time.

i have forgiven.

—lana