Most Black women I know have at some point been told, "Oh, you're pretty...for a Black Girl." While pretty is in the eye of the beholder, conditionally pretty is just plain rude. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" contains the lines: "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact. One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, that is the madman. The lover, all as frantic, sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt." I reject the notion of a standard of beauty. I reject the notion that only madness can make an "Egyptian brow" beautiful. The pieces represent the petals of self-esteem that may have been blown away. The complete rose brings them back together and makes us whole.

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