B by Sarah Kay
Autor: voiceofsomeonelse | Publicado: 2011-09-11T21:49:00-07:00

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 the solar system  on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe  before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”


She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you,  hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up 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, 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 that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra  supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak  that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks 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 see the world  through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a  magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human  mind.Because that’s how 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 wanna  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,” ‘cause there  is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop  kissing.the shoreline, no matter how many times it is sent away. You  will put the wind in win some, 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 overtrusting, I am pretty fucking naive, but I want her to  know that this world is made of sugar. It can crumble so easily, but  don’t be afraid to stick out your tongue and taste it. Baby, I’ll tell her, remember your mama is a  worrier, and your papa 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 oughta meet your  mother.