if i should have a daughter, i would,
for the staggering second she feels like she is utterly
alone, let the entirety of my being
be about her so at least that way,
no matter what happens, she knows that she can always
fetally return to me. and i will paint the map
of the universe on the aerial view of her stomach
so she’ll have a myriad of stardust and comet rain
to keep her home tills she feels bigger
than her demons again.
she’s going to learn
that this second, as long and dragging
as it may seem, etching at her throat till it is infinite and tangible only,
will end;
it will not wait for her to resurface to drown her
again and there is no lesson in that. there will always
seem to be better ways to pave your life
and romanticize each of your scars to say,
“i could’ve made it that way -
without all this -
too.”
"and darling," i’ll tell her,
"don’t try to go looking for people to save; soon
you’ll realize there aren’t many willing to look
the way you are. but if you do find yourself
atop a bully teaching him a lesson
with your five-year-old fists of soft-knuckled fury,
you must apologize for being emotional and say,
‘my reactions have an expiration date and for now,
it’s go big or go home.’"
i will not keep an extra supply of cookies and weather-mocking clothes;
all she’ll have are her hands and mine until her face
outgrows the comforts of my fingertips. when her index finger
will bend and twist at its spine and kneecap
from an accuse
to a surrender,
i will not be there.
i want her to see the world through the optic fibers
of wisdom that can only come from hurt, to look and feel
the grass between her wheatish little toes and find a place
where it isn’t plastic anymore, because
that’s how I wanted to learn. i wanted someone to teach me how
to flirt and love every day as if
it were my only to treasure and make
warm. that there will be days when the warmth
i feed every touch with
will quickly succumb to the screech of satti
inside me and no one
will be able to carbonate my injuries but those
are the very days, people will expect me to say,
"thank you,"
because there will
never be anything more beautiful
than watching myself burn,
fall
and build something new of it again.
"baby, remember that part is the hardest; to take
the sum of your dark parts, lull them in your broken
embrace, make pretty pretty pretty till it is so far from pretty
you have no choice but
to take yourself for what it is --
for what you are.
you will put the 'i' in warrior, take the 'er'
in worrier, slip it off the edge till you are sure.
say it with me,
'i am sure and i have learnt,
no lessons unneeded ever
came my way. i have kissed
all the right shorelines,
budged
and returned
to the debris i was meant to become.'"
and there
is nothing wrong with debris, dearheart.
if i could show you how pure sand binds itself into the giant
nature has made it, you will never grieve.
but when they finally
tell you that you are small, cough up
insults between sneezes and snickers about your tired eyes
and crooked smile, tease a finger down your trust
and thrust its remains with wet rubber, tell you
that your idea of hope stems from spite and cold pessimism,
you tell them that they
really
ought to meet
your mother.
