The Nickname

BY: MEGAN FEBUARY

When I was little my friends called me Sunflower.

With long straggly hair, bleached in all the wrong places.
I wore baggy blue jeans and my brother’s t-shirt that hung down to my knees. Smearing my mother’s eye shadow across my lids like a magazine.

I was an old soul twelve, but looked around eight. 

Crooked teeth and gappy smile.
Hanging around all the wrong kinds of people.
I was desperate for someone to see through the thin skin I was wearing.
To call out the imposter in me so I could be free.

My life felt like an ongoing game of hide and seek, 
except I was the one hiding and no one was seeking.

Terribly lonely.
Can you imagine?

This is around the time I began to write poetry
and It felt like being found.

Words upon words upon words.
Piled high like a blanket.
I crawled under language and lived there with a village of stories.
Perhaps I never left, because here I am still writing.
Twenty years older with a little less hiding.
Still going by the name of Sunflower on certain occasions.

Megan Febuary is the Editor-in-Chief of For Women Who Roar. As a trauma survivor, Megan found words, movement, and art to be a crucial part of her healing process, and wanted to extend that platform to many other women who have a story to roar as well. She has facilitated women's writing and poetry groups, as well as yoga workshops focused on embodiment and trauma recovery. She is currently finishing her first book of poetry to be released in early Fall 2018.

IG: @meganfebuary

FB: @meganfebuary