The Geometry of My Own Bloom

For too long,

I offered my edges like a public common,

letting the world graze upon my spirit

until the marrow ran thin.

I believed the call on my life

was to be a clearing for everyone's rest...

to let them trek through my peace and leave their heavy footprints behind.

But I am reclaiming my garden.

I am realizing my skin

is the perimeter of a holy place, and my heart is the well at the center

that I no longer owe to the thirsty

I am learning the liturgy of the pruning shears.

I am cutting back the "yes"

that was actually a choke-vine,

clearing the tangles of other

people's expectations

so, light can finally reach my own branches

My boundaries are trellises.

They are not meant to keep me in,

but to give my spirit a way to climb

toward the Son

without breaking under the weight of the world.

I have spent seasons praying for rain

and then running for cover,

terrified of silence that follows

the storm.

Not this time.

I am staying out in the downpour,

letting grace sink through the layers

of my history

until it reaches the deep, private

places that have been parched for decades.

I am softening.

I am turning green again.

The hardest work is the staying,

to remain at the table of my own soul and eat what has ripened.

I am no longer abandoning my harvest

to go tend to someone else's drought.

I am standing still

in the center of this lush, breathing body.

I am tending.

I am listening.

I am finally staying present long enough

to taste the sweetness of the woman God has allowed to grow.

---

About Shawana Peters

Shawana Peters is a faith-rooted writer and creative visionary whose work explores womanhood as a sacred design. She writes from the belief that the body is a temple, the heart is a garden, and cultivation is an act of obedience as much as artistry. Her language is devotional with spectacle-grounded in Scripture, shaped by discipline, and committed to the quiet architecture of becoming.

She is the founder of The SoftHer Garden, a space devoted to softness as spiritual strength and tending the inner life with intention. She is also the creator of Petal Pressed Co., a customized apparel brand that transforms affirming, faith-centered language into wearable design.

Across her work...written or worn, she returns to one conviction: a woman is not common ground. She is sacred ground, stewarded with care.