darling daughter of mine, i see you and recognize you. i see your mother, i see myself, i see our beginning and our end. i see us mixed up in you and something else entirely, unrecognizable.
what is this thing, this growing jumble who sits besides me even after i’ve scolded her, even when i was wrong for doing so, sits besides me, climbs all over me, snuggles herself between me and and the couch wants to watch tom & jerry while i’m desperate for sleep?
i’m still waiting for a hard drive for the brain to never forget any of this, to never forget how she rolls her eyes, how she holds up three crooked fingers when she wants to say she’s two, how she tilts her head to the left and to the right and she dips and sways while singing some sing-song nonsense that eventually leads to an abrupt cackle of her laughter.
never forget any of this, not forget any of her or her mother, until the end of days, until my very end, until the end of all of this.
(we’ve been at it again, another baby on the way. please. please, take anything you want from me, leave this one whole, leave them all whole, take only from me for them, leave them whole, i need nothing that would keep them from being whole)