to my transgender flower children:

to my transgender flower children: a teacher’s pride

My classroom is a plot of wild teenage roses

Hues of blush growing upright, perpendicular to predetermined fertilized soil,

waiting for a countersignature from some arbitrary high commissioner for permission to flourish

Roots grip so tight that I think they might be permanently seated in front of me

Because

Who wants to leave a place they are allowed to take up space?

Rosy cheeks, but not rose-colored glasses

No, these students know the reality of being called a thorn because

When born, someone wrapped them in a floral adorned blanket,

but they walk in on early, rufescent mornings identifying as something other than

what their birth certificate gave

and I water them with praise for being brave because

Who they are someone once called misbehaved, and, said they’re digging their own grave

Rosy cheeks

because in my classroom

it is warm

I am their sunshine

and I fall down on them

so that they thrive,

so that the pink that rests

just below their flesh

is proof that they are alive,

Not a garden indicator

making them believe

that their body is a traitor,

no their

petal,

Sepal,

Ovary,

stamen,

They know, in my garden,

there is no shame in

“A rose by any other name

would smell as sweet”

Shakespeare once said

And while I am no

Iambic Pentameter master

or scarlet letter wearer

I am a crimson stop sign,

a flaming foul line

to anything that doesn’t scream,

“this place is safe and

I am your front line

because my roses grow wild,

weren’t designed on some product line, fit into a mold, then paroled, expected to

Uphold some identity or salute to some gender binary dignitary,

make it feel all sweet cherry and strawberry,

When really it’s mortuary of their truth

They bloomed differently

they bloomed with bloodshot beauty

they can’t be condensed to a single classification

and why should they?

My pride, to be a small part of their growing narration,

My pride should not feel like a temporary dianthus hued sunset vacation,

And so I’ll keep my sowing my perennial garden until the world’s ideations are

Nothing short of transgender, my wild flowers, celebration and appreciation