Dandelions are Weeds by Sara Kempfer
**Content warning: This piece contains depictions of child abuse, pedophilia, and sexual assault.
You’re four years old visiting your dad at the castle that grownups call the social services building. A nice lady named Mrs. Chen usually plays with your dad and you, but she gets up and leaves the room. “I’ll be right back” she calls out. You notice her shoes click on the tiles of the floor like your teachers’ do at school. You run over and get in the lap of the large teddy bear in the corner for protection.
Your dad comes over to the teddy bear. He puts his hand out expecting you to grab it and follow him. Taking your hand, he leads you down the potty smelling stairs. As soon as the sun hits your young face, dancing dandelions call you to come play with them, but you know you’re supposed to stay clean in the borrowed dress clothes. He brings you to a wooden slatted bench at the top of the hill, and you think of winter and sledding.
“Little girl, go pick one of them flowers and bring it to me,” your father says, sitting down on the bench and pulls out a cigarette from the pack in his jean pocket.
Delighted, you find the prettiest dandelion flower, pick it, and bring it to him like a gift.
“Come to me” he says, leaving no choice.
He lays the yellow-petaled flower down on the sun bleached bench slat and slowly raises your shirt over your head and then removes the rest of your clothes.
When he pulls you half way across his lap, you feel the roughness of his denim jeans scrape your undeveloped chest. You start to cry.
“Please no, daddy, I’ll be good. I promise.” You think you’re going to get a spanking, but you can’t think what naughty thing you’ve done, which means he wants the other thing that goes in your mouth and makes you gag.
“Be quiet,” his hand grips your arm so tightly that you cry out. A stinging smack on your backside forces you to bite your lip, stay quiet, avoid another smack.
He picks up the yellow, buttery flower and starts twirling it against your skin from neck to toe. You try to distract yourself by counting all the nearby dandelions, but you can’t keep track, so you squeeze your eyes shut so tightly that the sunlight turns red under your eyelids.
When he’s done, he hands the dandelion to you. “Get rid of the weed, little girl, and put your clothes back on.” He turns away to light another cigarette.
You quickly wipe your mouth feeling your whole body shake. You put your clothes back on. When you’re at the top of the stinky stairs, you realize the dandelion is crushed in your sweaty palm. You let it drop and wipe the yellow dust on your shorts. They’d never be clean again.
Artist’s Statement
I enjoy writing flash fiction and various forms of poetry that focus on how life’s struggles offer the opportunity to learn and grow, and how there is beauty in the world in the midst of those struggles. This experimental nonfiction is my first foray into more directly telling my own story. Most of my pieces are semiautobiographical in nature. Many of the circumstances I write about reflect on the foster care system and how it leaves an indelible mark on a person who has experienced it. I hope that one day my writing can shed light on the failures of the system, yet, how it’s possible to rise out of it in a beautiful way.
Sara Kempfer is from Wisconsin but is currently residing in Texas with her two very needy cats. She completed her undergraduate program in English Creative Writing in 2003 at North Central University in Minnesota, where she also enjoyed the role of Teaching Assistant for the senior level grammar course. She is currently working on her Master’s degree in the same field at Southern New Hampshire University. Her work can be found in Fine Lines journal.