Binding my feet into these regal shoes.

As an ancestor, I pray my lineage will choose—

the day where women’s feet are unnecessary to blister.

It’s sinister.

I bear the pain for my culture— carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.

But the customs of this royalty and power is to honor those who came before me— the women who quietly—

held the foundation of history.

They stood— obeying, toes curled beneath the sole of their feet in the rooms of men so I could walk out the door easily.

Today, I walk in these shoes so my daughters can run free— with dignity.

Unfurling.

The lotus on my stockings remind me— May both individually AND generationally— we grow through the muck to blossom in our highest form of divinity.