Dandelions

there was once a young woman,

tall and skinny.

long sand colored hair

reached her recently formed hips.

she had lovely peach covered lips.

she would go into the field behind her house

and make dandelion crowns all day if time allowed.

the dandelions seemed dainty

but were actually stronger than anyone had ever imagined.

just like her.

she found handling the dandelions quite cathartic

they were her mother’s favorite flower.

since her mother had passed away,

she loved the flowers herself.

she would give them to her friends,

if she had any at the time.

most of the time she would just hang them on a tree.

one day she started looping them together to create a chain of them.

strong and intricate.

time and time again she did this

so that eventually a house was created.

she was so pleased with her dandelion house

because that meant she never had to go home again.

struggling to make friends,

she relied on her dandelions for comfort.

all of the children in the town thought she was quite strange.

overrun with the burden of her loneliness,

she started taking it out on the one thing she truly loved,

the dandelions.

whenever she was overcome with desolation

she would tear one of the dandelions out of the house.

she did that so many times she ruined her house.

she had ruined the one thing she loved

because she did not know what else to do.

as she was sitting on a pile of torn dandelions,

she realized that she had turned into the monster

that drove her away from her house in the first place.

-Hannah Sterkel