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.

If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B,
because that way she knows that no matter what happens,
at least she can always find her way to me.
And I'm going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands,
so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say,
"Oh, I know that like the back of my hand."
And she's going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face,
wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach.
But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry.
So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn't coming,
I'll make sure she knows she doesn't have to wear the cape all by herself.
Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers,
your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I've tried.
"And, baby," I'll tell her, "don't keep your nose up in the air like that.
I know that trick; I've done it a million times.
You're just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house,
so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him.
Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place,
to see if you can change him."
But I know she will anyway, so instead I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby,
because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix.
Okay, there's a few heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix.
But that's what the rain boots are for.
Because rain will wash away everything, if you let it.
I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that's the way my mom taught me.
That there'll be days like this.
♫ There'll be days like this, my momma said. ♫
When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises;
when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape;
when your boots will fill with rain,
and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment.
And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you.
Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away.
You will put the wind in winsome, lose some.
You will put the star in starting over, and over.
And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.
And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am pretty **** naive.
But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar.
It can crumble so easily,
but don't be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.
"Baby," I'll tell her, "remember, your momma is a worrier, and your poppa is a warrior, and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more."
Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things.
And always apologize when you've done something wrong.
But don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.
Your voice is small, but don't ever stop singing.
And when they finally hand you heartache,
when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners of cynicism and defeat,
you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

-Sarah Kay

If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,
You can let them look at you.
But do not mistake eyes for hands or windows or mirrors.
Let them see what a woman looks like.
They may have not ever seen one before.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,
You can let them touch you.
Sometimes, it is not you they are reaching for.
Sometimes it is a bottle, a door, a sandwich, a Pulitzer — another woman.
But their hands found you first.
Do not mistake yourself for a guardian or a muse or a promise or a victim or a snack.
You are a woman — skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat.
You are not made out of metaphors, not apologies, not excuses.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold,
You can let them hold you.
All day they practice keeping their bodies upright.
Even after all this evolving it still feels unnatural.
Still strains the muscles, hold firms the arms and spine.
Only some men will want to learn what it feels like to curl themselves into a question mark around you,
Admit they do not have the answers they thought they would by now.
Some men will want to hold you like the answer.
You are not the answer.
You are not the problem.
You are not the poem or the punch-line or the riddle or the joke.


Woman, if you grow up the type men want to love,
You can let them love you.
Being loved is not the same thing as loving.
When you fall in love, it is discovering the ocean after years of puddle jumping.
It is realizing you have hands.
It is reaching for the tightrope when the crowds have all gone home.

Do not spend time wondering if you are the type of women men will hurt.
If he leaves you with a car alarm heart, you learn to sing along.
It is hard to stop loving the ocean even after it has left you gasping — "salty."
So forgive yourself for the decisions you've made.
The ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night and know this:
Know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place to call yours.
Let the statues crumble.
You have always been the place.
You are a woman who can build it yourself.
You are born to build.

-Sarah Kay

When I was younger,
I used to dream of flying right out of my skin.
My soul soaring from my first grade body
To where soft meadows smelled of rain.
Out, over the tarmac filled with those who wished to clip my wings.
Past those who wished to tie them down with nightmares,
How fast I would fly.
Every night, wings I never saw, but still knew I had,
Lifted me from my broken bones and my torn heart
And I was reaching heights I had always wanted to taste
And smell of soft sunshine filled clouds.

So that I was hovering, eyes wide open, seeing it all at once.
This big world and its bright beauty
So blinding,
Sometimes I had to close my eyes and feel its gentle glow on my belly
Without touching it,
Without squishing it between my toes,
I knew it sat there for me to find;
My soft place to land.

And one day it found me.
It reached out and grabbed me.
When I tried to stretch out my wings,
It grabbed me.
It grasped my ankles and tore away my dreams.
Burying my feet,
Forcing roots from my toes.
My bright beautiful earth placed me on broken ground,

Then, when my longing heart finally gave up on flying ever again,
I felt rain kiss my cheek.
I lifted my eyes to the sky, closed them, and imagined it missed me.
And as I felt the sweet kisses slip from my face, I looked down
To find myself planted
In a soft meadow that smelled of rain.