From The Vaults: IR0N FL0WER (originally posted August 2011)

pic by Warwick Saint

 Do you know an iron flower? That's the term I use for a woman who is graceful and has beauty yet is tougher than boarflesh, and at times edgy as ground glass. She has lived in a whole culture designed to poison her and drag her down (willfully or not) and yet is an amazon, a tigress that's a quick flash in the jungle. How many of us know what they truly survive? Women get told they can't always do everything guys can. This could be as simple as missing a ball game or as complicated as not getting hired for a certain job in order to even make a living. Perhaps they will get hired, very often based on looks over ability.

It's insane to think of the level that women get oversexualized and objectified...look at any magazine newsstand in America. It's all 101 sex tricks this and lose 40 lbs that. Not to say their physical beauty cannot be appreciated, but should it be to a level where that seems to be the ONLY way they get around? Should the eyes of men be gluttons instead of taking a balanced share?
Collective insecurity over body image gets bad enough to the level that diet pills and eating disorders begin to take reign. Low self esteem fills many a girl's life like an insidious noxious gas seeping in. It creeps beyond the physical and many begin to doubt their mental and spiritual worth, not just the worth of their body.

How many iron flowers have withstood backstabbing and conniving, sometimes by their own supposed friends or family members? How many ties were severed? Which amount have had to work multiple jobs or tried to get an education and dealt with people's shitty attitudes in the process? It's hard enough to juggle one life, but how many have had to raise children on top of everything else? How many have had to witness atrocity left and right, including losing loved ones to overdoses, car accidents, suicide, you name it? How many have been blindsided by sickness or disease or any sort? How many have turned to drugs, selling their bodies, self mutilation? What of abuse in general? How many women have endured physical, sexual, emotional, verbal, psychological abuse..sometimes from an age all too young? More importantly, how many have soldiered past all that?

Iron flowers take no prisoners and take no shit. For every Red King, there is a Black Queen. Next time you meet a girl who seems to be a total bitch, remember, she could just be an iron flower. She has had a long day today dodging all those bullets.