you are wholly you and sometimes that means
that you're not a poet because you're a yogi
or a program manager or a sister or a friend
or a hiker or an auntie or a crying mess in your bed

i'm sorry for trying to shackle you to the notion
that you have to dream one dream and be
the thing you drew on your "all about me" poster
when you were in first grade and they told you
that you could only grow up to be one particular thing

i love you for being multidimensional, for capturing
the world in film, footprints, fountain pens, and friendship,
for being able to cut the dead weight out even if
those pounds feel like the most essential part of you in
this moment though you know that they have been sitting
directly on your chest and stifling your every effort to breathe

i love you because you are you, and at this point you
finally feel okay with that, and so you're able to look out
into the world and truly begin to love others in a way you
never conceived possible - your innate quality of giving has
taken on meaning that stretches beyond band aids and equality,
and instead reaches realms of equity and true understanding
despite the fact that the lens you see through is nothing like anyone else's

i love you because you are learning and willing to grow, and
a lot of growing happens to mean letting go, even if the emotions
you feel are validated and warranted, you've learned to see them,
to be them, and to breathe them back into the universe instead of
placing them in the mason jar that lives beneath your rib cage
until they explode and sends shards of glass into your most vital organs

i write to you to let you know that i'm proud of each moment you
decide to take care of yourself even if that only means washing your
face before bed time, for being brave enough to make decisions
based on you instead of him, for standing up for what you believe
and equally as much for admitting when you're wrong, for living a life
no longer based in fear, but in love for yourself and all of humanity