I think you are a beautiful but sad desert rose, so accustomed to harshness and survival that you are unfamiliar with the softness of being a garden rose, one that is watered, nurtured, and cared for.

Survival teaches you endurance, not ease. It teaches you how to persist in dry soil, how to bloom despite neglect, and how to make something of very little. But it does not teach you how to rest. It does not teach you how to receive it. It does not teach you what it feels like to be tended to without having to earn it.

There are people who have spent their whole lives becoming strong because they had no other choice. They learned to brace themselves against the sun, to conserve what little water they had, to grow thorns as protection. They were praised for surviving, celebrated for their resilience, admired for their strength. But rarely were they asked whether they were tired of surviving.

This is an ode to the first daughters, the desert roses, the ones who learned responsibility before softness, resilience before care, endurance before joy. The ones who held families together, raised themselves and others, and carried weight far heavier than their years.

You are strong. You are beautiful. But strength was never meant to be your only identity.

You deserve to be watered.