It will hurt like a tattoo guns sting
as the ink infiltrates your skin.
Your first love will be like a tattoo on your heart,
buried deep,
always remembering the blessings and pain he gave you.

Be with a person who fills you with fluttering hummingbirds
even after the first and second and tenth kiss
who drinks the nectar of your demons and sucks them lifeless.

There will be men who you think will carry you forever
but after so long of holding
your feet above the water
they will throw you down. 
They will not reach out a hand to pick you back up.
They will turn cheek,
kissless and forgotton.
You will stand with dirt palms
and fall back into his inferno.

There will be loves like this,
who convince you to prick yourself with safety pins,
the ones who carry guns on their backs
but never shoot to protect,
only to hurt.
The ones who drink all the water,
leave you parched in the desert of his mistakes
telling you that they are your own.
The ones who shoot arrows in your lungs
and you lye bleeding 
believing that the color of your blood is true love for him.
The hour hand will spin around the clock
too many times before you leave him.
It will hurt. 
You thought it was true,
but after the death of it
you will realize you deserve someone so much sweeter
than a bitter apple. 

Love the one who doesn’t cheat you blind,
but instead comes to you with truths in his wretched palms
and waits for you to
forgive,
but never gives up and never stops wishing that the past could rewind
that he could change the things wrong that he did to you.

Love the one who feeds your heart warm apple pie,
who cries in front of your children,
who drives them to school and hugs them when they get home.
Be with someone who doesn’t ask for you to change
but instead loves your mistakes
cradles them within his fabric lungs
breathes them in with a grin.

Love is an interesting thing.
You will be thrown out of a moving car to the side of the road.
Some will come running back to you.
Don’t jump back in the front seat,
just run
and run 
and run 
and run
until you find someone who buckles the seat belt for you.
Drives five under the speed limit,
takes things slowly and waits for you to be ready to accelerate.

Daughter,
I am here for you.
Remember me, the one who loved you first,
the one who will never stop loving you.
Come to me after he breaks up with you.
You can cry on my shoulder,
and ill wipe your tears with my sleeve.

Daughter,
Find a love who loves you the way 
that your father and I love you,
the way that your grandmother loves you.
Find a love who already considers you family.
Who meets you
and looks into your ocean eyes
and drowns peacefully into your heart.