Bloom Then Crush
Ninja Assassin, my little Kokeshi Doll.
Riotous, violent Violet.
Roots and soil — dark and dirty.
But up above is all that beauty.
“You and I both know that’s not gonna happen,”
she said to me.
Cornflower iris.
Freckles like dandelions
across the nose of the sweetest child.
Tender heart, old within —
never broken, but withholden.
Locked within, like Joan of Arc.
Violet is not the one crushed.
Not this time.
When she was small she held
applesauce in one hand,
your whole heart in the other.
Tomyris awakened —
queen of the wild steppe,
slaughtering kings for what they stole.
“He took from me,” she told.
Whispering curses through the sails
of Artemisia upon the sea,
to battle for country, not for its king.
Artemisia steers her spine,
saltwind in her hair, war in her balance.
Once asked me, when she was four,
“Why didn’t you name me Skull?
Just call me Skull.”
“Little tough girl,” I said.
“Violet is perfect.”
Foreign feelings like micronations,
staking claims on memory.
She takes up the challenge
to delete the bad —
wishing they were storied kingdoms
and not real memories.
Sorting through images not for a youth,
making sense of something
that should never have been for her.
The warrior she is, my god.
Hitting apples with a baseball bat,
like Helen Candaele —
A league of her own,
entertaining us at home
while the boys are gone.
Youthful knight, sword and steed —
she is the warrior Boudicca,
taking on demons,
the Roman nation,
the Roman Empire —
those thoughts men have,
once per day, they say.
She is not alone in her rage, her rising.
Tomyris whispers blood-oaths
into her tiny fists —
You are allowed to say what you mean.
You are smart. You are fun.
You are more than that one memory.
The Trưng Sisters braid her hair
in knots only a sister could untangle.
Women are our ancestral home —
and Violet, you’ll never be alone.
That one time,
when mother wasn’t watching —
Stranger Danger is not a very nice man,
Mama told you.
But she forgot to mention
the stranger we didn’t know
at home.
And Lozen —
Lozen hums through her earthly body
like stormlight,
lightning and thunder,
teaching her how to bloom and crush; to be
Violet Applesauce
Author’s note: This free verse poem is inspired by warrior women of history—Tomyris, Artemisia, Helen Candaele, Boudicca, the Trưng Sisters, and Lozen—and by my daughter Violet, whose childhood nickname was Violet Applesauce. Her strength has always been her own. It weaves moments from her childhood with my memories as her mother—some beautiful, some difficult—and gives voice to what I could not say when those moments were happening.
