If I should have a daughter, the first thing I’m gonna teach her is how to pass the blade. Because then she’ll know that if she handles it the right way, she won’t hurt herself or the people she cares about.
She’ll learn that screaming at the world won’t help her tear it down,
that the world will only tear her down instead.
And that’s how she’ll learn to stand strong - because once you’ve built your stronghold back up, you stand so tall and so proud that eventually you believe it too.
I’ll be there to help her see that when her wrists ache, and her shoulders shake, and her legs tremble, there will be hands reaching out to help her hold up the world.
She’ll have help donning her armor, unsheathing her sword, and fighting her battles.
She’ll have help forming her fortress and fortifying herself because
she
is not
alone.
When she realizes she can’t save all the hurting little girls out there, I’ll show her that she’s one of them too,
and so was I,
and that saving herself brings her one step closer to handing a little girl the grip of a blade and teaching her to wield it.
There will be times where she can’t think to go to work, do her homework, or even get out of bed.
She won’t find the motivation to help herself, let alone anyone else.
There will be days when she screams at her mother that having her was a mistake,
days when she can’t move for all the speed of the world around her because she doesn’t feel a part of it,
and days when she would rather give up than suffer any longer.
She won’t think to pass the blade, too busy turning it on herself, because the sight of her blood is better than the sight of her tears.
But those instances when she ends up at the bottom of that pit that’s been dug special for her are the ones she’ll forget in pieces,
pulling out those jenga blocks and stacking them anew so she can build her tower even higher.
She’ll see through the windows in her castle a world so worth living,
worth changing,
that she’ll use her blade only to protect those who can’t yet see the ocean or the mountains because their palace hasn’t made it out of their pit.
Their precarious towers won’t fall because she’ll be busy protecting them all.
And when the world tries to tear you down, she’ll say
“No,”
because she’s seen how terrifying the world can be,
but she has her army of protectors and her blade, and now she’ll pass you your own and show you how to fight.
This is an emulation of a poem by the same name by Sarah Kay. It's about my struggle with hereditary bipolar disorder.