Revolutionary Roots

Denise Pereira
Resistance Poetry
Published in
2 min readAug 20, 2019

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The bending of sunflowers (by Denise Pereira)

This summer, I have been growing myself some roots. I took some images from the world wide web and I meditate on those. I fall asleep listening to imaginary cell growth.

I close my eyes,
allowing my feet to touch the wooden floor. First softly, almost afraid, then sensually, only to dive down unapologetically, applying more and more pressure until I feel the floor with my navel.

Roots.
It took me a while to realize that my feet have been shaky as fins; however,
I am no fish. As a daughter of the earth, I require roots for emotional growth. How could I forget about the root cap with its bidirectional trajectories? Perhaps I was too distracted with the movement of his car, as we crossed those endless sunflower fields. I was then unaware of how much of a sunflower I was myself. Gravitating towards bodies and wills.

Throughout my life, I was told I was a flower. I should aspire to become a flower. The true meaning of such an idea is finally unraveling before my eyes.

Flowers are there to please.
To bend towards the sun.
To nurture bugs and bees. To entertain with color and fragrance.
But not to last.
Not to claim space.

Roots penetrate.
Enable and inflate structure.
Nurture and connect in symbiotic bliss.

Flowers perish while roots grow and persist.

“Why would anyone want to be a flower, when one can be a root instead?”

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Denise Pereira
Resistance Poetry

Poetry performer, who believes that words have the magical power to transform, heal and connect.