1.
Dandelions are edible weeds. You can eat the flower, roots, stems, and leaves and not die. No wonder I haven’t died yet. I am still breathing while being eaten alive. Standing tall blooming in the concrete. The top of my head outstretched to the sky, my beaded braids dancing in the sunlight. My feet do not move. They warn me to sit down just for a moment to remember the ground and how it watered my roots so I can breathe.
I inhale. Sip sip the air like the one too many glasses of champagne I had alone on my couch with a joint in my left hand contemplating the truth. The truth that some people lie. Lies woven, intertwined, linked like chains between the truth. I take it. Because I am a dandelion. An edible weed. Feasted on with love and lies yet somehow resilient to it all.
Dandelions are antioxidants. The flower actually. When in full bloom and eaten, you get rid of the things you don’t need. The flower flushes you out. Like all of the things I sneak between my thighs. The guttural ugly things I’ve said between parse lips waiting to be lashed out and latched onto something, someone. I hold my breath. Wait for the response. Instead of welcoming the truth between the distance, I am greeted with the sound of unanswered questions as the phone call goes silent and slowly fades away. I shrug it off. I sit on my porch and greet the new moon free but the sound of silence settles in my left ear. I am a dandelion. An edible weed. A prize and a prisoner. Someone revered and respected, but often overlooked in a field.
Dandelion leaves restore your appetite. The leaves stimulate your internal system. When you digest the leaves, your limbs come alive and your gut releases the tension that you let settle for far too long. I eat the leaves. I want to feel the blood inch its way through my body to wake up my frozen toes. Blood doesn’t typically flow to my extremities. Often leaving me ice cold on a humid summer day. I violently eat the leaves wondering how a dandelion can be both a contradiction and a solution. I do nothing about the night before. Don’t scroll aimlessly or let my finger press call. I exhale. Sip sip the air and remind myself of the champagne the night before. The phone call I made and wasn’t greeted with the truth. I remember how I didn’t cry. For the first time.
I swallow the leaves nestled beneath my tongue. I look out the window and notice all the dandelions swaying in the wind. The breeze stops for a moment, and one dandelion floats about the grass. Finally free. No longer an edible flower, healing, but blooming.