When I grow up I will raise a beautiful baby girl

her smile will be so big that people will say she looks like her father

because her lips are just as cracked

my daughter will be a mirror reflection of her mother: gorgeous, except I will never let her shatter

I will polish her with love and frame her with compliments and boy will she shine.

but if i should ever find a smudge I will dampen it with a lecture of everything I know and before that lecture itself becomes a smudge of self resentment I will wipe it away with a little bit of:

“now I know and you know that you messed up but no matter what you will always be my baby”

and I know that smudge won't be gone completely but I’ll just call it character.

Of course it would be easy to raise a mirror

but when I grow up I’m raising a daughter not a piece of glass

so I better apologize in advance

for never getting her the right gift on her birthdays. I’m sorry, ponies are just too damn expensive.

for siding with mommy even though it may seem unfair. I’m sorry but mommy could kick my ass.

for every scratch on your skin

for every time you fall

for not making every event

for making you move away from your friends

for tickling you a little too hard

for every time I’ll lie to you about the shots, the cleaning alcohol and the heartbreak...

I know it hurts baby, just hold my hand and bite my finger

you can make it through it, you can.

I apologize for every boy who lets you down but darling I was one of them too and look how I turned out. I’m sorry I can't lock you away from hurt, I’m sorry that sometimes I’m just gonna have to let you learn the lessons the hard way and I’m sorry that sometimes you will be exactly like a mirror and just like every sick bastard that makes you feel like shit you will shatter

mentally.

very often.

You may think I’m crazy but Krazy Glue is the best glue and if I’m crazy it’s because I will spend hours of my life

years of my life

for you

smiling while I’m picking up the sharp, jagged, unforgiving pieces of a mirror

slowly piecing it back together

no matter how cut my hands get because I know you are not simply a mirror

an object

you are my daughter, my wife’s daughter, OUR daughter

a living breathing human being that I will make stronger than I have ever been

I need you to be strong in this world that I’m bringing you into

I need you to look into mirrors and not see a price tag but see the beautiful-africana-mulatto-princess you are. being black and white doesn’t make you a barcode.

I need you to know that being a girl in America doesn’t mean you have to spread eagle for every average joe with a craving for cherry pie

I need you to not be what magazines say you are, pull up your explanations instead of a flimsy skirt, drop the plastic ideals of how promiscuous a girl should be instead of the deep V on your shirt

it annoys the shit outta me

most of all: I need you to not be influenced by music where a woman feels it’s alright to call herself a cunt...

I want that word to be fire in your ears and sludge in your mouth.

gag every time your tongue has the audacity to pronounce it for a purpose other than the same purpose I use it now, loathing

I need you to look in that goddamn mirror

hold your head up high and boldly pronounce to the world

“I am not a reflection of you, stop pointing your price guns at me, I am not worth anything. My daddy says I’m priceless. I am priceless.”
you are priceless

When I grow up, I am going to raise a woman.